by Fonda Lee
“You could never afford a custom job,” Carr said. He felt suddenly that this woman who’d raised him was a stranger he’d never known. “How did you get mixed up with a splice dealer like that?” Because at the end of the day, that was what Mr. R was, wasn’t he? A step up from the criminals that traded in people’s illegal and ill-considered genetic fantasies to have night vision, or wings, or kids who were clones of famous people.
“I was broke, Carr. Broke, and thirty-six, and my boyfriend had just left me. So I figured that was it—I was going to leave my fertility turned off for good. I got depressed, so depressed I went to this support group. And someone there told me about a medical study you could audition for, and get all your conception and genetics fees paid for. So that’s how I met him, and he picked me to make an offer to.” There was a strange note of pride in her voice, the way a person might be proud of something they had no control over, like winning the lottery. “He picked me out of everyone else.”
Of course he did, Carr thought cruelly. A poor, simple, reasonably stable, hopelessly gullible woman in good genetic health who wanted a child and was used to doing what she was told. His words came out like ice. “Am I even yours?”
Sally pulled back as if he’d slapped her. “Of course you’re mine. You’re every bit mine, but so much better.” Her soft face trembled and she blinked back sudden tears. “I’m nothing special, Carr, you know that. I’ll never amount to much. But you … you’re going to have a better life. What wouldn’t a mother do to give her baby boy a better life? You’ll lift us both up, like he promised. I … I’m proud of you, Carr.”
A sharp ache pierced Carr’s chest and he turned his face away. He was not going to go to her to be held like a little boy. “Why now?” he managed to say. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
“Oh, what good would that have been, darling?” Sally scolded gently. “You didn’t need to be bothered by that when you were younger, being so busy training up for the pros and all. You shouldn’t burden a boy with decisions and expectations, or take anything away from him at that age. That’s how Mr. R always explained it. Besides, what would you have done? Zeroboxing was our golden ticket. Better to live up to your full potential, and pay your debts later, than to sell yourself short, wouldn’t you say?” She sounded as if she’d memorized that line, been waiting for years to use it.
“You knew it was illegal, didn’t you?” Carr’s words were leaden. “You could have gone to jail. You still could.”
“He promised me that wouldn’t happen,” she insisted. “Genetic standards always seem to be changing anyways, and I thought about what an advantage I’d be giving you. It was worth the risk. Wasn’t it?”
How could she possibly expect him to answer that? But her voice rose anyways, and she shifted to look at Uncle Polly, as if expecting his support. “Wasn’t it?”
Uncle Polly had been silent the whole time. For once, he looked old, his usual youthful energy missing. He was leaning against the wall, his arms crossed, his hands tucked into his armpits. It occurred to Carr that he did the same thing when he was nervous and must have picked up the habit from his coach.
“I don’t like that man,” Polly said, his voice low and resigned. “He’s rotten and self-serving to the core. But he’s right about some things, Carr. Nature turns out plenty of its own outliers. You measure the stats of the very best athletes and they’re off the charts, sure as if they’d been spliced that way.” He glanced at Sally with a bitter solidarity that Carr finally understood. “We’re not exactly following the rule book, it’s true. But sometimes an opportunity comes along for you to level the field, to stand a chance, you know what I’m saying? And you have to take it.”
Carr no longer knew what to believe. “You knew? From the beginning?”
“Not at first.” Polly sighed. “Maybe I suspected at some point but pretended I didn’t. Look, I was down on coaching. Real down. I’d had two fighters flame out. Good fighters. One kept getting injured, and the other trained up just fine but couldn’t handle the pressure of the Cube on fight day. Cracked every time. Then I get an anonymous tip, telling me I’ve got to see this kid, this seven-year-old living on the planet. I was coming down for something or other anyways, so I look up the name of the land gym I was given, walk in, and see you. It happened just like you remember.”
Carr remembered all right. At seven, he’d been taking kickboxing and gymnastics when he wasn’t playing basketball or getting into fights at school. He never wondered, at the time, how Sally found the money to indulge every sport he felt the whim to try, but now he had his suspicions. Uncle Polly had walked in on a kids’ kickboxing tournament, watched him handily beat ten- and twelve-year-olds, and a month later, Carr had taken his first shuttle bus trip up to Xtreme Xero.
“I trained you for two years, and then I got a call,” Uncle Polly continued. “That man brings your mom and me into a room and lays it all out to me. He says, here’s the deal. This kid is going to be something. There are about a dozen sports where he could make it big. Zeroboxing fits him like a glove. It’s always been big on Mars, and is going to be big on Earth too. Even then, top fighters like the Manons were making serious cash per fight. So he asks me, ‘Are you in or out?’”
Carr’s words crept out of a throat that had shrunk by two sizes. “So it was all about the money. For you too.”
Uncle Polly’s demeanor changed instantly. He lurched up, stabbing an indignant finger at Carr. “You watch your mouth, you hear? It was never just about the money. Sure, money was involved, but it wasn’t the reason.” He was the coach again, in full tirade mode, and Carr shut up reflexively, as if he’d run a drill too slowly or come off a poor sparring round. “By then, I’d seen what you could do, what kind of kid you were. I liked you, not just as a coach, but as a person, you know, kind of like—”
Like a father.
“Like family,” Uncle Polly said. “You loved to train, loved to fight. What was I supposed to do? Kick you out? Turn you over to Genepol? It would wreck you. It would wreck me to do it, because you were what I’d always hoped to find. The kind of fighter that comes along once in a lifetime if you’re lucky, the champ I’d dreamed of building from the ground up. Everything I gave you, you gave back. You were the best I ever trained. Still are.”
Uncle Polly turned his fierce gaze aside, composing himself. “I didn’t want it to come out like this, not now, with you so pumped up about the title fight. I wanted to be the one to do it, later, but his share of the purse was too big for that bastard to leave off. I’m sorry it went down like this. I’m real sorry.” And Polly did look really sorry, the lines in his face deepening into crevices. “But it’s true—this doesn’t change who you are, doesn’t take anything away from you. Every fight you’ve won has been on account of you working your ass off and wanting it badly enough.”
But even the working, and the wanting, weren’t his doing; not exactly. They were part of that one line in his secret genetic profile: Custom germline modification—temperament. Such a blunt, technical explanation for his personality.
Carr turned away. He couldn’t be here right now. He was too confused. He needed to be alone, to think. He pulled open the apartment door and went down the narrow steps two at a time. He expected one of them to call after him, but they didn’t. He banged through the entrance without looking back.
TWELVE
Outside, the sun was shining down on the withered grass and cracked sidewalks, warming the moist air that rolled in from the south off the surface of Lake Ontario and over the tall, honeycomb-stacked waterfront condo buildings. It didn’t seem proper for everything to look so bright when his life had just had a black-hole-heavy pallor dropped over it.
Carr started walking, to nowhere in particular. His cuff flashed a silent alert message—he was near his personal daily data capacity. Too many messages, posts, and Systemnet hits streaming in all at once. While he’d been
inside his mother’s apartment, discovering the criminality of his existence, Bax Gant had announced that the Raptor would be challenging the Reaper in a New Year’s Day showdown to determine the ZGFA Lowmass Champion of the Universe.
He walked faster, as if he could escape the vaguely sick feeling settling in his gut.
Fighting Henri Manon for the belt would be breaking the law. If his enhancements were discovered, he’d lose any title he ever won and be banned from ever participating in another sanctioned competition. It was illegal in almost all countries on Earth to knowingly hire someone with non-therapeutic genetic modifications, so career options were limited. Not that there was any other job he could imagine wanting. He would have to leave Greater Earth orbit, exile himself to one of the outer stations, maybe ship out to the asteroid belt.
His breaths were growing fast and shallow. He forced his feet to stop for a minute so he could pull himself together—it wasn’t going to happen. No one had found out so far, and no one ever would. Mr. R had been confident.
Picturing the man with the smooth face and silver tongue made Carr grind his teeth. He was not a tool. He was more than just a ripening cash cow for his unscrupulous creator. He was—what the hell was he?
His cuff brought up a priority incoming call and his receiver played its familiar rising chime. He glanced down at the display. Risha. Suddenly, his knees felt weak. If only he could magically pull her through his cuff, bring her to him right now. She was always so quick and competent, able to think her way around anything. He accepted the call.
Before he could say a word, she said, “Prepare to be impressed. The fact that the fight was announced while we’re still on Earth is perfect. I have your first interview lined up for tonight, in public, right on the Harborfront. Eason is getting the word out on the Systemnet and we’re going to have a massive crowd of fans. It wasn’t easy, but I managed to rush-order pop-up holovid ads to go up all over the city tomorrow. Still working on your schedule. How was the visit with your mother?”
Carr closed his eyes, mentally reeling. Disastrous, actually. About that … “Err, fine. It was fine.”
“You’re not going to believe this.” Risha was breathless with excitement. “Bran Merkel called me directly to say that he’s assigning more people to our team. At least one for on-planet promotions and another for Systemnet marketing.” She paused. “Your cuff signal is moving around slowly. Are you walking somewhere?”
“I’m just … checking out my old neighborhood.”
“When can you be back at the hotel? I have a long list of things to run you through.”
“Risha … ” He didn’t even know how to begin. Hey, guess what, of all the shitty luck … No.
“Have to go; the city venue coordinator is calling me. Can you be back in ninety minutes?”
He swallowed. “Yeah, okay.”
“Carr.” His name on her tongue was rounded and full. “See you soon.” She ended the call. A tight band of tenderness and panic squeezed down around his chest.
He realized that his aimless walking had carried him several blocks, to a familiar corner. Enzo’s apartment building. He’d forgotten his promise to catch up with his friend.
Carr crossed the street. A small crowd was gathered on the sidewalk in front of the plain, three-story brick building: a handful of neighborhood children of varying ages, a few curious adults, and a camera crew. With surprise, he recognized the back of Marc’s head and lengthened his strides to reach him.
“What’s going on here?” he asked.
The man startled and whirled around. “Carr, you’re here,” he exclaimed. “Perfect. We’re getting the local media to precede the event tonight with personal testimonials.”
Carr saw, then, that Enzo was in the center of the crowd, talking to a reporter and a cameraman. “Yeah, I’ve known Carr since I was seven years old. Basically, he’s my hero. I’ve watched every one of his matches about a hundred times. He’s the best zeroboxer ever, but he’s not stuck up at all. He’s a really nice guy and super down-to-earth.” Enzo’s clothes looked too big on him, and he blinked too much behind his cringe-inducing glasses, but he glowed like a dwarf star. “In fact, he’s an even better friend than he is a fighter.”
A lump lodged in Carr’s throat.
Enzo’s mom was standing on the steps of the apartment building, watching. Her face looked different, too thin and taut for her age and body—she’d had some nanosculpting done. She leaned her hips on the railing, her arms crossed, her jaw working over a piece of gum. Her eyes were heavy-lidded with a languid mixture of curiosity and disdain.
Carr regarded her as a man might regard a large rat sharing his dungeon cell. She had nothing to do with his problems, but he could loathe her anyways. He took several steps forward before the kids at the edge of the crowd noticed him.
“He’s here,” someone called, and the next thing Carr knew, he was surrounded by people all talking at once, taking pictures, jabbing their cuffs to record and transmit optic feeds, asking him for autographs. Marc helped position the cameraman as the reporter pushed to the front.
“Carr,” the reporter shouted, “how does it feel to be here in your home neighborhood on the day your championship fight is announced?”
He looked at the crowd, the cameras. Unreal. The whole day was unreal. “Words can’t describe it.”
“Your mother still lives right here, where you grew up, doesn’t she? She must be very proud of you.”
“I owe everything to her.” Painfully true.
“In just this past year, you’ve been credited with exploding the popularity of zeroboxing,” the reporter continued relentlessly. “What do you think about that?”
“I don’t know if it’s me so much as more Terrans discovering just what zeroboxing is. I’m glad if I’ve helped make that happen.”
The reporter started to blurt another question, but Carr shook his head and broke free. Enzo’s mother straightened away from the railing, her eyes widening as he took the front steps in a couple of bounds and stopped directly in front of her.
“Ms. Loggins,” he said. The overly sweet smell of her perfume filled his mouth with a nasty taste. He lowered his voice so he couldn’t be overheard. “You have to take Enzo to get his eyes fixed. And his lungs too—they have gene therapy for that. Look at him, will you? He shouldn’t have to be like that.”
She looked him up and down, one side of her mouth curling in affront. “You think you can come right up and lecture me, do you? Just ’cause you’re famous now? You’re still the same neighborhood brat to me, Carr Luka. In case you don’t know, those things cost money.”
“If you saved up the money, instead of—” He bit down.
She wagged a painted purple nail at him. “You want to talk about money? I just bet my last two paychecks on you.” She sniffed loudly, as if this was his fault. “So you better win now, you hear? You want to do us favors, you win that fight.”
Carr had never hit a woman, but he would have liked to give Ms. Loggins a smack to send that piece of chewing gum flying out from between her scornful lips, right in front of the camera. Wouldn’t that be a publicity stunt to end all. He spun around and went back through the crowd, ignoring the reporter and making for Enzo, who was bouncing on the balls of his feet, still yammering into the camera. He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s get out of here. You want some ice cream?”
Carr ordered double-scoop sundaes for both of them, then kicked himself. What was he thinking? The biggest fight of his life was in two months and he had to cut mass—he couldn’t eat ice cream. The cold, sweet spheres of mint chocolate chip sat in the bowl, taunting him, promising relief from heat and emotional turmoil. For a mad second, he thought Screw it. Screw the fight, screw everything. He jammed a spoon into the top scoop. Then he pushed the bowl toward Enzo and got himself a glass of ice water from the dispenser.
Enzo nudged his glasses up the bridge of his nose and dove into his sundae. “You can’t stay long, huh?” he said, glum.
Carr shook his head. “I’ve got two days full of whatever the marketing gurus tell me to do, and then it’s back to Valtego.”
Enzo sighed. “I wish you could stay longer. It would be amazing if I could bring you to school.”
“For show and tell?” Carr scoffed, then turned serious. “How is school?”
“S’okay.” Enzo studied his reflection in the spoon.
Carr didn’t believe him; a kid with an inhaler and glasses was begging to be tormented. “You remember what I told you about kids giving you trouble, right?”
“Never look scared, and keep fighting even if you’re getting thrashed. Hit them hard when their guard is down, and keep hitting even after you think you’ve won.”
“And go for the face. You bloody someone’s face, half the time the fight goes out of them.”
Enzo brightened. “Last month, Ronny Briskus pushed me into a wall and said my mom was a nutty bliss addict whore, and I cracked him in the mouth, just like whack. We were both sent home, but I gave him a bloody lip.”
Carr was inclined to agree with Ronny Briskus, but he reached across the table and shoved Enzo’s head affectionately. “Good for you, little man.”
The boy grinned over a big spoonful of ice cream. “So have you checked the net chatter yet? The Reaper is already trash-talking you.”
“Yeah? What’s he saying?”
“Here, let me see if I can find it.” Enzo scrolled quickly through his cuff display. “He says, ‘I never heard of the kid until last month. Zeroboxing has gotten so popular, I guess they’re looking for underwear models to put in the Cube.’”
Carr nearly choked on a swallow of water. “That’s a good one. What else?”
“He goes, ‘I’m gonna start the new year nice and easy, by taking out the garbage.’ Oh wait, here’s one more: ‘Do you think this poor sucker knows what my last name is?’”