by RJ Johnson
Emeline turned and shook her head, “In what world do you imagine I’d ever want to talk to you?”
“I got credits!” the badly pockmarked man bragged. He opened his ArmBar display and showed her the credit balance he held. The balance did show a fairly impressive amount for a Mole, but he wasn’t about to retire on New Luna anytime soon. “I took my man in blue for the win at 5 and a half to one and the bloke paid off nicely.” He elbowed Emeline and let his hands lightly pass over her ass. “I’m willing to pay even nicer for you.”
Emeline flashed her prettiest smile at the disgusting man propositioning her, “How much you thinking?”
The mole’s greedy eyes opened wide and looked her up and down taking in every inch of her body. From her long curly brown hair, hazel, almond shaped eyes and toned light brown skin, Emeline knew she was a beautiful woman and was more than a little curious to see how much she’d go for on the open market.
“Two hundred,” The mole said, licking his lips.
Emeline was insulted. If she was going to prostitute herself, she wanted to at least be a high class prostitute.
His face fell at her reaction, “Three hundred?”
She ran her finger down his scarred cheek, “I think I may be a bit too expensive for you.”
“Four?” the mole asked hesitant.
Emeline smiled, and suddenly she grabbed the Mole’s crotch and squeezed the man’s grapes for all they were worth (which in her mind wasn’t a whole lot). She pushed and yanked, flipping the man end over end using his crotch as leverage, spilling him onto the sticky arena floor. His friends exploded in laughter, as the miner howled in pain.
“You bitch!” he cried out. “You…”
“Careful there,” she said, turning to walk away, “I don’t think your baby bells can afford another insult.”
The mole’s friends were still laughing as they reached down to pick up their fallen comrade. He pushed their help away.
Emeline made her way through the crowd and approached a private door at the back of the arena. A Coalition MP looked down at her through his visor and she showed him her ArmBar. He scanned it, and saw she was on the list and had a pass. He stepped aside to let her through.
The locker room was much quieter than the cacophony of noise in the arena. She moved through the dark hallway where most of the lights were flickering or burned out. She paused at the doorway to a dressing room and saw the man she was looking for.
Jim Meade sat on the side of the medical bay bed wrapping his right hand with sports tape. He ran his fingers through and made sure the tape was wrapped tight to keep his joints from moving around too much. His boxing shorts were yellow with black stripes on either side – to Emeline he looked strange without his black hat and dark red-brown duster jacket.
Instead, Emeline being was treated to a view of his six pack abs and tight, lean muscles. Satisfied with the wrap job on his right hand, he grabbed the roll of tape sitting on the table and began to wrap his left hand when he looked up to see Emeline in the doorway.
“Did you get it?” he asked Emeline without preamble.
“I got it,” she said, entering the room. “I still think it’s the most damn foolish things you’ve ever done.”
“Like I’m short on any of those?” Meade said, his eyes crinkling in a smile.
She snorted, “Still number one so far as I’m concerned. Breaking into a Warlord’s private stash is stupid,”
“And yet, you still enjoyed drinking O’Donnell’s whiskey just as much as I did after I was done,” he reminded her.
“You don’t think all this is a bad idea?”
“Em, a win here on borrowed credit, I’ll finally have the kind of money to retire on New Luna with enough left over to buy out your debt to the Coalition,” he said smiling. “But, none of that will happen if you didn’t get the money.”
“I got the money,” Emeline repeated crossly as she opened her ArmBar. She wirelessly connected to Meade’s ArmBar and transferred the money over to him. “What if you don’t win?”
He chuckled. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.” He looked back down to keep taping his left hand. Emeline snapped in front of his face to get his attention back.
“Hey, seriously...” Emeline said concerned, “What if you don’t win?”
He shrugged, “Not a problem I’m particularly worried about at the moment.”
“You might need to start worrying about that in the next twenty minutes. It’d be smart if you had yourself a few alternative plans for retirement, say, for like, a real job.”
He ignored the dig, looking at the poor job he had done wrapping his left hand and began unwrapping the sports tape. Emeline took his hand.
“Here, let me get that,” she said and began to rewrap the tape around his hand.
“What’re the odds on me?” he asked.
“I didn’t check.”
“Em…”
“I didn’t check!”
He sighed and looked at her. Emeline was trying to protect his feelings and that meant the odds had to be worse than he imagined. The people who calculated them had a lot of computer power and statistics behind them that made their predictions very reliable. He caught her eyes finally and she sighed.
“You’re sitting nearly fifty to one.”
He whistled, that would mean a lot more money than he had originally thought if he won the match. He was surprised (and a bit insulted) the odds were as long as they were – he might not be one of the biggest names in the Zero-G fights, but he had definitely held his own while fighting his way up the ranks to get this match. His strategy was a good one and a great deal of other, more experienced fighters had been unable to adapt to him in time before they found themselves on their back with the ref finishing his count.
But, tonight’s match was different. He was fighting someone who had made a real name for himself in the Martian Zero-G fights. Kevin Chau was ranked as one of the best in the league and Meade was only supposed to be filler – a piece of meat for the soon-to-be-champ to get some exercise with before the big championship later this week. As one of the premiere fighters in the Zero-G league, Chau had made quite a name for himself over the last year and a half. He always knew his fight wouldn’t be easy, but fifty to one was an impressive set of odds to beat.
“That’s not so bad.”
“I’m pretty sure fifty to one is only if you survive the match,” Emeline said, her signature gallows humor on display.
“Trying to cheer me up won’t make me reconsider Em. I’m telling you, I studied his tapes. I know what I’m looking for.”
He hopped up off the Medbay bed and shadowboxed a few moments. “No one in the arena will see it coming, I promise.”
“Pretty confident for a dead man walking.”
The voice came from the doorway, Meade and Emeline spun around to see a tall man wearing a fashionable pinstripe suit and slicked back hair. A pencil thin beard followed the outline of his jaw and was neatly trimmed to a point under his chin.
“Palmetto,” Meade said sarcastically, “I didn’t know you were a fight fan.”
“More than just a fan Mr. Meade,” Palmetto said lazily as he entered his dressing room, “I have quite a nice financial stake in your opponent.”
He chuckled, “Well, everyone makes bad investments on occasion.”
Palmetto locked his eyes on Emeline, staring at her, “I’d like if we could speak alone.”
Emeline glanced at him and Meade waved her off. “It’s all right. Em here was just leaving to place a bet.”
She looked at him and he nodded, silently telling her that it would be fine. She chewed the bottom of her lip and left the room, though it was clear she didn’t like leaving him alone with the oily and dangerous Warlord of E-Block.
Palmetto turned and closed the door behind her. He grabbed a metal folding chair and dragged it across the cold tile, the sound scratching Meade’s nerves.
“So, Mr. Meade…”
“Palmetto if you got something you wanna say, get to it. They’re expecting me out there.”
“They will wait,” Palmetto unfolded the chair and sat down in front of Meade, crossing his legs and picked a piece of lint off his trousers. “I have a proposition for you.”
“I’m not interested.”
“You don’t even know what I have to say,” Palmetto replied, somewhat amused.
“Maybe,” he said, inspecting the wrap job Emeline had done on his left hand, she did good work. “But I already know how this goes. You offer me money to do something I’m not interested in doing and I say no. You’ll up your offer, and I’ll refuse again. You’ll threaten me, I laugh. You offer me more money than I’ve ever seen in my life, but I’ll still say no.” He stood and approached the Warlord, placing his face inches away from the man who terrified so many on his Block. “So let me save us some time. I will never work for you or your blood money.”
“Mr. Meade, be reasonable!” Palmetto said, chuckling at Meade’s outburst, “You’re a Runabout. You can’t make any money in the Coalition mines without a SecureCard installed on your ArmBar and it’s not like you’ve got any opportunities with the Consortium forthcoming. The very best you can hope for is some lucky million to one hit at the casino or forever used as ring fodder for fighters who long ago passed you in skill and opportunity. You have no hope of making a living on this planet if you don’t play ball with someone whether it be with the Coalition, Consortium or me.”
He plucked another imaginary piece of fluff off his suit, “Besides, after tonight, you’ll need one of us.” Palmetto said, staring at Meade with his piercing blue eyes. “Because believe me, you’ll wish you had.”
Meade shook his head and moved to the doorway, “Go to hell Palmetto. I’m not your errand boy.”
Palmetto rose and put his hand on Meade’s bare chest stopping him from leaving the dressing room.
“You will come work for me eventually Meade. One way or the other, I will have you on a leash.”
“Not today,” he pushed past the warlord in charge of his local block and moved down the hallway towards the arena.
The dull roar he could hear in the locker room began to grow louder the closer he approached the doorway to the arena. He was stopped by a man wearing a headset.
“You ready?” the man in the headset asked him.
“About as much as I’ll ever be.” Meade replied. The nervous energy he had so far contained was now bubbling below the surface somewhere between excitement and drop dead fear. Too late to back out now, he thought.
The sound of heavy rock music filled the arena and the announcer’s voice boomed through the arena telling the fans Meade’s weight, height and relevant statistics. While his chances didn’t look good to the odds makers, Meade had racked up a fairly impressive streak of recent wins in the undercards. His strategy was simple: Watch as much tape as he could find of his opponents and make one less mistake than they did.
Tonight’s bout was to settle who would face the current ZFC Champ, Titus Greene. Meade had earned his spot at this level, but no one expected him to beat Kevin Chau and move on to the championship bout. Chau was a beast who had been responsible for the deaths of the last two men he had faced on his path to the champ.
While preparing for this match, Meade had studied hours upon hours of film of Chau’s fighting techniques and after his careful research believed he found a weakness that he could exploit. Course, that all depended on whether or not he survived the first few rounds, which wasn’t always guaranteed in a fight with Chau.
The crowd roared at the announcement of Meade’s name - some in approval, but most booing the no name. He stepped through the doors and walked through the gauntlet that led to the ring. The crowd, expressing their displeasure with the no name on the fight card and showered him with beer cups, both full and not – some of those cups were filled with liquids other than beer, though Meade did his level best to avoid thinking of what those mysterious liquids might be.
The walk to the ring was a short one. There, an official opened the door to the cage that the ZFC fighters fought in and let Meade through. He raised his fists in victory, hoping to elicit something of a positive reaction from the crowd.
“Tonight’s bout is scheduled for five rounds with the winner facing the Martian Heavyweight Champion Titus Greene for the ZFC Championship.”
The crowd roared as bookies on the sidelines began taking last minute bets. Emeline pushed her way through the crowd and spoke with one of the bookies near it. He nodded as Emeline swiped the credits Meade had borrowed from the loan shark. She ducked under the rail showing her ArmBar credentials to the officials standing there. She approached the ring looking up at Meade giving him the thumbs up.
He nodded and began to nervously jump on the balls of his feet to expend all the extra nervous energy he was feeling. No matter what happened next, it was too late to go back now.
“In the Red Corner, standing at six feet, two inches, one hundred and ninety five pounds… the Martian Menace… James MEAAAAAAAAAAADE!”
The boos rose in volume again which made him smile, Sounds like Chau’s got his fan section in attendance.
The announcer leaned in to Meade holding the mic away from his mouth, “They’re out for blood tonight. I hope you’re ready to put on a show.”
Meade didn’t respond. He had enough on his mind than to worry about putting on a good enough show so the moles didn’t riot by the end of it. There was nothing worse than Martian miners who were bored and drunk.
The mood changed as the lights above Meade in the arena flickered. Three spotlights tracked over to Chau’s entrance ramp as fog began to snake out from the doorway. A low drumming began to echo through the arena as the crowd chanted Chau’s name. The drumming became more intense and louder as the crowd chanted louder and louder. The announcer stepped away from Meade and jutted out his chin.
“In the Blue corner… standing at six feet, six inches high… weighing in at two hundred and thirty five pounds… from parts unknown… Keeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevin CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAU!!!”
The doorway exploded and Kevin Chau stepped out to the roar of the crowd. He stood looking out at the crowd with a grim expression. His black arms were covered in tattoos and snaked with thick muscle put on by hours of dedication at the high grav gyms. His thighs were the size of tree trunks and as he slowly moved down the ramp to the ring, a cape flowing in the gentle breeze behind his deliberate steps.
Meade never got scared exactly - he always chalked up whatever he was feeling to an upset stomach. In fact, it was one of his rules that he had to keep him from making questionable choices. Rule Number Fourteen – Don’t get scared, fear makes mistakes.
However, the second Chau stepped into the ring, he had to admit what he felt was the slightest tinge of fear stabbing at his guts. He swallowed it down and continued staring Chau down as hard as he knew how. Chau entered the ring, his eyes never leaving Meade as his entourage began taking the fighter’s ornaments off.
Meade shook himself out of his fighting robe and approached the middle of the ring as Chau tested his gloves by punching his fists together. Satisfied, he approached the center of the ring where below them a large red number 1 was emblazoned on the green canvas. The circle that they stood within in the center of the ring was one of five that were scattered throughout the ring. Each ring (depending on which round it was) would alternate between zero gravity and higher than the Earth normal gravity.
The manipulation of gravity was accomplished by a Higgs Generator – large machines embedded underneath them that had the ability to affect the amount of gravity that was on you at any one time. Higgs Generators didn’t manipulate gravity directly of course, instead it adjusted the relative strength of the Higgs Field (which gave particles its mass) within its target area
After each round of a Zero-G fight, the amount of gravity each circle generated increased by a factor of 1. The second round’s circles alternated between proje
cting twice the normal amount of gravity and zero-gravity. The third round would have three times the amount within the circles, and so on and so forth. By the fifth round, if a fighter found himself trapped within a +5G circle, the fight was over.
Suddenly, the Coalition National Anthem began blasting out of the loudspeakers overhead. Meade glanced away from his opponent for the first time since he entered the ring and looked up into the crowded arena.
Above him a large procession was filling the VIP boxes. Two of the spotlights that had been fixed on Meade and Chau quickly tracked up to the VIP Box. There, he could see the Coalition Ambassador along with her chief of security William Hugh enter the arena in her private box. She paused and waved to the people she represented to the Coalition below. The crowd dutifully cheered, as the last bars of the Coalition national anthem trickling out of the stadium speakers.
He was surprised to see Ambassador Andromeda Corcoran. He knew she was a fan of the Zero-G league, but he never imagined that she’d deign to attend one of his fights. He looked back at Kevin who still hadn’t taken his eyes off him, and realized she wasn’t there for him. She was there to watch Chau take him apart in the brutal fashion he had become so well-known for.
The ref approached Meade and Chau checking their gloves for anything that might rub off into their opponent’s eyes. Meade didn’t figure Chau for a cheater – if there was one thing the Warlords took seriously, it was the Zero-G fights. There weren’t many who were stupid enough to cheat – there was far too much money involved and if one Warlord decided to cheat, they all would send the sport into a debilitating spiral.
“Keep it clean gents, I see enough blood and I don’t give a good goddamn what you say, I’ll stop the fight. You get it?” The ref said in a gruff tone that left no doubt that he was a man of his word.
“Roger that Cochise,” Meade said lightly and offered his gloves out to his opponent.
Kevin Chau just stared at him, his black bald head shining with sweat. Chau was there for blood, but he was there to help Chau get used to disappointment.
Meade smiled and winked at the man. Chau slammed his gloves into his fists as hard as he could.