The Combat Codes

by Alexander Darwin

  Cego’s eyes were wide and alive as he felt a strange tingling from the flux brand on his scalp. The light was communicating with his body, taking in every detail of the fight: how many heartbeats had passed, how many breaths he’d taken, the exact saturation of the oxygen running through his blood vessels.

  At its apex, the light suddenly dimmed and Cego was again standing in the noisy room. The drunken spectators were still yelling, the air still tinged with smoke and stifling body odors. His opponent’s crew entered the Circle, dragging the boy’s lifeless body across the floor and out of the room. Cego felt a pit in his stomach.

  Ozark still had that deep-cut frown on his face.

  The Tasker grabbed his arm, dragging him out of the den. “Don’t ever play with my chances in getting you sold off as fast as possible, boy, or I’ll make your life more miserable than it already is.”

  *

  Cego’s bit-price rose with every fight, his flux brand constantly shifting.

  He looked at his reflection in the dirty mirror of their bunk. The strange brand on his head was alive. The ink on the brand was in constant movement, the pixels never staying in one place, swirling and waiting for the next command from the light.

  Cego most recently beat a boy from Circle Crew Two that had been previously undefeated. The boy had come at him with a series of thudding leg kicks. He rubbed his thigh where a huge welt in the shape of the boy’s shin had swelled up. Walking, let alone training, would be tough today.

  As Cego won more fights, the rest of the crew began to tone down their tormenting. Although they ignored him for the most part, they removed the tin cans from his cot and no longer touched his food.

  Weep and another boy from the Crew Nine had lost their last fights, so Ozark was especially vindictive with the day’s training. With the damage his leg had sustained, Cego could barely make it through the drills.

  “Think you’re going to lose on my watch?! Think I’m going to just let that go?” Ozark screamed at the boys as they crawled on all fours in the red dirt.

  Weep fell to his belly in exhaustion. Ozark marched over to the little boy and placed his boot on his back, holding him to the ground. “Want to take a rest, you little sniveler, do you? All right, how about I take a rest too and stand right here for a while?” Ozark had his weight pressed on Weep’s back, crushing his boot down on him.

  Watching Weep struggle beneath Ozark’s boot, Cego could feel the hairs on the back of his neck prickle up. His jaw clenched and his fingers curled into fists. He forgot about his sore body and the task at hand. He was on all fours in the dirt, his golden eyes locked on Ozark.

  Anger is like a boiling pot of water. Useful if you can keep the boil steady, but if turned too hot, it will overflow and become useless.

  The old master was right as usual. Attacking Ozark would be disastrous for the whole crew, Weep included. Cego breathed out deeply.

  Ozark removed his boot and yanked Weep back to his feet. “Keep moving,” he yelled as he prodded the little boy forward.

  A long rope run was to be the final drill for the day—the crew was barely standing at this point. The boys wearily attached the gnarled rope to their harnesses, pulling the line taut between them.

  Ozark was taking them past the limit this time. The Tasker wanted to make them stronger so they could win, so he could win. But this was beyond training. This was torture.

  The run began as it usually did, chaotically. Dozer surged forward, pulling the rest of the boys, some staggering and tripping over each other’s feet, others stumbling to the ground. They would never make it through the entire drill like this.

  Cego was the middle link. He needed to do something now.

  He placed his hands on Knees’ shoulders in front of him. The scar-faced boy was startled at first, turning back to look at Cego suspiciously. Cego didn’t say anything, he just looked at Knees and kept his golden eyes steady.

  For every step Cego took, he put slight pressure with his hand on Knees’ same-side shoulder, also using his outstretched arms for support.

  After a circle around the perimeter, Knees turned back at him and nodded—he understood. Knees placed his hands on Shiar’s shoulders and did the same thing.

  Cego looked back at Samot and got his attention to the front of the line, where Shiar now had his hands on Dozer’s broad shoulders. Samot looked like he was about to pass out, but he grabbed hold of Cego’s shoulders.

  Soon, the entire rope line was running in sync. No boys crashed into one another. Their legs moved in rhythm. They were using the entire group’s momentum to move forward like a giant centipede.

  Cego could see Ozark watching the crew, his eyes darting back and forth calculatingly.

  “Halt!”

  The rope crew came to a stop, the boys panting.

  “Weakness! You scumlings aren’t fit to my task, so you’ve decided you need to cheat, to hold each other’s hands. Will you have each other to hold on to in the Circle? When a Grievar is on top of you, smashing your face into a pulp, where will your friends be then?” Ozark spat into the dirt. “I will not tolerate such weakness. Sloth carries. Now!” Ozark screamed.

  The crew was on the brink. They were nearly broken.

  With a malicious glint in his eye, Ozark paired Weep with Dozer for the sloth carry. The frail boy clearly could not support Dozer’s weight, not even for one second. He tried futilely to get under Dozer, heaving with his shoulders until he fell to the ground helplessly underneath the bigger boy.

  Cego had Knees as a partner again—he lowered his base and was able to hoist him fairly easily, although moving with him on his shoulders was tiring this far in.

  Ozark walked to Weep’s side, looking down at him. “Stop crying, boy. Your mammy isn’t here to patch you up.” The Tasker prodded the boy with his boot. Weep rolled over onto his back, the side of his face wet with tears.

  The anger swelled in Cego again, seeing the man standing over Weep with his boot against his rib cage. He dropped Knees to the ground and shot across the yard toward Ozark. Don’t let the pot boil over.

  “Let me show him how to pick Dozer up.”

  Ozark looked down at Cego, at first surprised to see him out of position and then seething to see him challenging his command. “Oh! If it isn’t the champion himself! Just because you’ve won a few fights, you think you’re a Grievar Knight. You think you can do my job for me?” The Tasker’s eyes narrowed. “Get back in line and do your task, you little larva. Run, fight, and shut your mouth.”

  Cego’s golden eyes gleamed; even under the dull light of the room, they burned with a strange luminescence. For a second, looking into the boy’s eyes, the Tasker seemed taken aback, even fearful.

  “If Weep can’t pick up Dozer after I show him how to properly do it, I’ll take Dozer on my back every day from now on.”

  Tasker Ozark eyed Cego suspiciously, clearly thinking he was trying to outsmart him. Ozark then looked down at Weep, still heaving, barely able to get himself off the ground, let alone lift a boy more than twice his size. Ozark nodded his head in agreement. “Okay, little champion, you’ve got it.”

  Cego knelt at Weep’s side. “You all right?”

  Weep wiped the snot from his nose, looking up at Cego with watery eyes. “I’m OK.”

  “I’m going to show you how to do this,” Cego whispered. “It’s as easy as standing up.” Cego could hear the old master’s voice again as he said the words.

  Weep nodded obediently. Ozark watched from the corner of his eye as he yelled gratingly at the other boys to keep moving.

  “First, breathe out. You’re trying to take in too much air but you’re not letting enough out. Breathe out first; get rid of it all.”

  Weep sat up, closing his eyes, and blew out of his mouth, more snot coming out of his nose as he did so.

  “OK, keep breathing like that Weep. Dozer, come stand here; don’t do anything. This will be good for you, too.” Dozer nodded and surprisingly did as he was told as
he looked into Cego’s gleaming eyes.

  “Now, Weep, I want you to think about it like this. You aren’t picking up Dozer. You aren’t picking anyone up. You’re getting under him and then standing up.”

  Weep was confused; he shook his head. “But I am trying to pick him up. There’s no way I can carry Dozer; he’s way bigger than I am. And I’m not strong. I couldn’t even pick you up, Cego.”

  “Watch me,” Cego said.

  Cego moved toward Dozer. The bulky boy outweighed him by at least seventy pounds. He bent his knees, crouching directly under Dozer, with one arm circling through his legs, grasping his back. He kept his posture straight. Cego then lifted from his knees, causing the front half of Dozer’s body to fall forward onto his shoulder. He wrapped Dozer’s arm around his neck and stood up effortlessly. He took a few casual steps around the yard with the huge boy on his back before letting him down.

  He looked at Weep. “See how easy it is? You can do this.”

  Weep nodded his head, wiping his nose and standing up.

  “Just remember, you aren’t trying to lift Dozer. Don’t use your back or your arms. You are standing up under him.”

  Cego showed Weep where to crouch and place his arms again.

  “Now give it a try.” Cego clasped Weep’s shoulder. “It’s just standing up, like you do every morning.”

  Everyone in the yard stopped to view the spectacle, even Tasker Ozark.

  Weep mimicked Cego’s movements. He crouched under Dozer, his knees bent. He tried to stand up.

  Cego held his breath as Weep’s knees buckled for a moment, but suddenly, the large boy was on top of the tiny boy’s shoulders. It was a very unnatural sight, as if a mouse were lifting an ox. Weep appeared the most surprised of everyone in the yard, his eyes bulging. He took a cautious step forward, as if to prove his own feet were moving underneath him.

  Weep steadily walked around the yard with Dozer awkwardly draped on top of his shoulders. Knees stamped his feet in the dirt and laughed, watching the strange sight. “The tiny one be all jacked up!”

  The rest of the boys in the yard hooted as Weep slowly made it back to the starting point before collapsing to the ground.

  Ozark narrowed his eyes and glared at Cego, as if he’d somehow cheated.

  Cego knew he’d pay for his intervention, but it was worth it. A smile crept across his face as he returned Ozark’s glare. The gaunt Tasker screamed, “All right, that’s enough of this! Shut it and let’s get on to the next task!”

  *

  After that day in the yard, the other boys began to act differently around Cego.

  Dozer was the first to break the standoff. It was the middle of the night when Cego awoke to the large boy standing over him. Cego stared at him for a moment with bleary eyes before Dozer extended his hand. Cego grasped it and was promptly yanked into the air, dangling like a newborn kitten. The large boy deposited him on the floor and put his finger to his lips. The other boys were still sleeping.

  He followed Dozer across the room to the wall next to his bunk, where the bulky boy knelt on the floor and shifted a small piece of concrete. He reached his arm about halfway into the opening, grasping and pulling out about a dozen cans of greens. Some were half eaten, and there were even a few unopened ones.

  Dozer smiled at him, nodding and passing him one of the unopened cans. He whispered, “Sometimes, I get hungry.” Cego returned the smile and padded back to his bed with his early breakfast.

  Knees didn’t protest anymore when getting partnered with Cego in the yard. Cego actually caught the scar-faced Venturian carefully watching him explain another technique to Weep. Later, he saw Knees slowly attempting to replicate the technique with another crew member.

  Eventually, the other boys began to come directly to Cego for advice on techniques for their upcoming fights.

  In the corner of their bunkroom, beyond the view of the old guard, Cego showed Knees and Dozer a simple back take. Drag the arm across, swivel the hips, out and pull the opponent down into the open space.

  To Cego, these sorts of things were second nature. He felt it in his muscles—he’d drilled that back take thousands of times. To these boys, though, even the simplest techniques were marvels. They were awed at the efficiency of good movement. The boys had Grievar blood in them, but they certainly weren’t fighters yet.

  Ozark eventually caught wind of Cego helping out the crew. Though he made Cego pay for the stand-down in the yard every chance he got, Ozark didn’t intervene with the off-hours training.

  Since Cego had arrived, the crew’s overall winning percentage had increased and they’d been moving ahead in the crew rankings, which appraised the cumulative wins of all members. Cego could nearly see the bits flashing in the Ozark’s eyes as he watched his product appreciate in value.

  Weep had even stopped crying at night. Before bed, Cego saw the little boy sitting up against the wall, breathing steadily as he’d shown him in the yard. Though he hadn’t won any fights, Weep had won some confidence.

  Shiar was the only one who still did not accept Cego. The jackal got even worse.

  After one of Shiar’s fights, he returned to the bunk and stared Cego down. Shiar had blood on his hands, having just mercilessly pounded his opponent into the ground with glee. He licked the blood from his knuckles while keeping his burning eyes on Cego.

  Shiar’s insults toward Weep became even more stinging, and he even turned his vehemence toward Dozer. Shiar treated Dozer like an unwanted pet, shooing him away and calling him a mound of useless muscle, a blockheaded dolt, and yet Dozer still followed his lead.

  And then Shiar called Dozer lightless.

  Before that day, Dozer had brashly repeated he would graduate from the Lyceum and become a Knight. That was his goal, his destiny, his lightpath.

  The scales of destiny weren’t balanced for all, though. For some like Dozer, who wasn’t born of pure Grievar blood, whose eyes didn’t burn like morning stars, that destiny was nearly impossible to reach.

  Shiar had made it perfectly clear to the rest of the crew on numerous occasions that he was the only purelight in the bunk, perhaps even at Thaloo’s. Both his mother and father were from a long line of Grievar. They “hadn’t strayed from the light,” as Shiar arrogantly repeated. Though he’d had the misfortune of ending up in this slave Circle, Shiar said it wouldn’t be long before he ended up at his rightful place at the Lyceum.

  By contrast, most of the other boys at Thaloo’s were lacklights; they were some impure mixture of breeds. They didn’t have the pure Grievar line that assured them a place at the Lyceum.

  After Shiar called him lightless, Dozer fell silent, no longer posturing before his fights and boasting in victory. In fact, the entire bunk was far quieter without the large boy’s constant bravado, thumping around wherever he went. Though Cego appreciated the newfound silence, he also saw the toll the insult had taken on Dozer.

  The large boy sat on his cot with his shoulders slumped, he barely ate (his numerous hoarded cans overflowed from his hiding spot), and during training, Dozer went through the grueling tasks with a lifeless monotony.

  Dozer’s bit-price began to fall along with his confidence—he’d lost two out of three of his last fights, one against a top specimen called Grinder. Cego had watched that fight from the sidelines.

  Grinder had taken Dozer down from the onset and unleashed a flurry of ground-and-pound for nearly ten minutes as his friend tried to cover up helplessly. Cego cringed, thinking about how the crew had dragged Dozer out of the Circle lifelessly, his big body looking like a slab of raw meat.

  Afterward, Ozark had given Dozer the bare minimum in meds from stock. Dozer was lying inertly in his cot, wrapped up head to toe in bandages, when Cego went to his side.

  “You did good covering up, but you could’ve gone out the back door.” Cego spoke softly, taking a seat at the edge of Dozer’s cot.

  Dozer looked at the flickering, dull source bulb overhead without expression. His
face looked like a craterous landscape, with welts and hematomas covering the surface.

  Cego continued, though Dozer stayed silent. “When Grinder postured up to throw down those heavy shots, your hips were under his. You needed to buck, put his head in the dirt and escape out the backside.

  “You’d risk taking a direct hit in the process, but it was the only way. Grinder was hoping you’d concentrate on defense—he’s made to smash through your forearms, grind you down slowly. You needed to take the risk to escape. You needed to commit,” Cego said.

  Dozer’s straw-colored eyes finally met Cego’s. “What’s the point in all this? Learning this stuff? Getting better? I’m not going anywhere. You heard Shiar. I’m a… I’m…” The big boy looked down at his chest as his body shuddered. “It’s not fair; lacklights like us… It’s not fair that we weren’t born purelights, when we want the same thing as them.”

  Cego nodded silently, agreeing. He didn’t think any of this was fair. Thaloo imprisoning them, throwing them in the Circle, and having them fight for his own profit.

  But Cego did know one thing now. He understood what Thaloo had said to him when he’d first arrived.

  You don’t realize that pappy Thaloo here is helping you.

  In some twisted way, Thaloo was helping these kids. Though his motivations were self-serving, Cego knew that there was some truth to them.

  He’d felt the spectral light in the Circle, the thrill of the fight. He knew that all Grievar had that connection, that same universal pulse of combat. They all wanted the same thing but would arrive on different paths.

  “Taking the back,” Cego suddenly said. Dozer looked at him quizzically.

  “Remember the technique I showed you the other day? Taking your opponent’s back.”

  Dozer nodded slowly, clearly puzzled at the line of questioning.

  “Well. I’ve probably learned about thirty ways to take the back so far. Drag an arm across, spin around from north-south, lure them into a throw. I could keep going and I know there are far more techniques with the same goal of taking the back that I haven’t learned yet,” Cego explained.