“Augmented super-heavy,” the fat man repeated. His voice had risen a bit. He made the change on his tablet. “Blades, spurs, claws, or razor nails?” Marco shook his head and the fat man pointed again, a new direction this time. “Augmented super-heavy has a separate roster. That way.”
“Thanks.” Marco stepped over the fighter in the fringed jacket and went where the fat man indicated. He was in. So far, so good. Jameson was going to be happy with that.
Rapid footsteps behind him brought a new surge of fear and pleasure. He spun around to face a lanky, brown-skinned young man with a cam, flickering HUD glasses, and a shirt carrying a Loose Gringo logo. “Easy!” the newcomer said. “I just want to talk to you.”
He hesitated as if waiting for permission, dark eyes still fixed on Marco’s face. It was going to take a while to get used to that from strangers. Marco jerked his chin. The young man swallowed. “Thanks. My name is Tej Majumder. You’re new, right? You got a vid jockey yet?”
Get acquainted with a cameraman, Jameson had said. Someone eager. Someone who’ll follow you like a puppy. Someone to catch every fight you win and every dump you take. You need to be on screen to get noticed.
“Aren’t you shooting me already?” Marco asked.
Tej hesitated, then lowered the camera. “I mean a dedicated vid jockey. If you do in the ring what you did back there, people are going to watch. They’re going to want to watch anyway once they get a look at you.”
That was the plan.
He named a price, a lowball percentage of what Tej would be able to get from sponsors and followers. Tej jumped all over it. “Deal,” he said. “Anything you want while you’re in Qingaut, you just say. I know people. I can hook you up. Booze, drugs, better food than most places sell—I know a guy who can get you real meat, hunts it out on the tundra. Companionship? Women? Men?”
Marco grabbed his arm before he could bring his camera back up. “How about information? Strictly off the record. No cameras involved. I want to know about a guy named Eric Roy.”
“Why?” Tej asked, then backtracked at the look Marco gave him. “Yeah, sure. Who is he?”
“That’s what I want to know.” He turned Tej loose. “Find out for me.”
A fist the size of a child’s skull and studded under the wrappings with big bony warts slammed into Marco’s belly. The pads of thick gel Dr. Ting had inserted beneath his skin and muscle absorbed the impact but the punishing force of the blow still doubled him over. The fist came in again. Marco sucked in a hot breath and writhed aside, then slid lower to avoid an elbow strike aimed at his head. Three quarters of the way to the mat. A vulnerable position and his opponent—the Junk Pile he called himself—knew it. Marco sensed movement as he hunched forward, ready to wrap arms twice as big as they should be and corded with misshapen muscle around his exposed torso, lift him off his feet, and slam him down hard.
Marco dropped even lower and those arms closed on empty air. For a moment his sweat-slicked stomach touched cold canvas then he slithered out from under Junk Pile’s shadow. He twisted as he moved, sweeping both legs hard against the other man’s shins.
Off-balance after his missed grab, pulled further off-balance by his massive arms and shoulders, Junk bellowed and pitched forward. Marco got his feet under him and rose, then darted forward to stamp hard at one of Junk’s exposed calves.
Outside the ring, the crowd roared its approval at the reversal. Bodies crashed against the barriers that kept them back from the cage of the ring. More bodies leaned forward over the railings of the open floors above, nothing more than vague shapes beyond the brilliance of hanging lights. Whoever had designed Qingaut’s main complex had probably intended this part of the Big Alley to be a tranquil atrium. They certainly hadn’t designed it with Stomp Brawl in mind, but no one seemed to care.
Marco got in one good stomp, then Junk Pile kicked out like a mule, forcing him back. Junk took the opportunity to scramble upright. For a moment they circled each other, curled hands swaying in front of their faces, ready to take advantage of an opening, ready to block an attack. Marco could feel blood on his face, trickling over a cheekbone and from his lip, but Dr. Ting’s smart fibres were doing their job. It was hard to tell how much damage Junk Pile had really suffered; like the muscles of his arms, the man’s face was already lumpy and discoloured with bilious blotches and streaks. There was swelling along his left jaw line where Marco had landed a series of punches, though, and the pupil of one eye was noticeably larger than the other. Marco bounced forward a couple of steps and threw a light jab. Junk flinched away, earning a round of disdain from the crowd.
The bell rang—still an actual heavy, old-fashioned bell, not digital playback—and the round ended. Junk Pile retreated to his corner, lumbering like a damaged tank. Marco could feel the bout in the ache of his body, but he made a point of throwing one fist in the air, saluting the audience as if he’d already won. The crowd rewarded him with a wave of deafening enthusiasm. He could imagine people around the world watching on monitors and cells, at home, in bars, sneaking in the fight at work, all screaming along. He jogged back to his corner with a grin on his face.
Tej handed him a water bottle with one hand while the other kept the camera high. “Looking good, looking good!” he said. “The ratings—you’re a hero, man. The ratings are through the roof! Other jockeys are starting to watch us.”
“Yeah.” Marco sipped from the bottle, then splashed water over his face. Medics stood by to look at his cut—most Stomp Brawl fighters didn’t travel with support crew—but he waved them off. He knew the itch of a closing wound. By the time the next round started, all that would be left on his skin was a smear of blood.
“Mr. Cole?”
Marco glanced over and found a young man with slicked hair and a tailored suit waiting for his attention. Someone’s assistant—someone important or security would never have let him near the ring. The young man held out a folded paper. “My employer invites you to join a party in his suite after your bout.”
No question of whether he’d win or not. Marco could guess the invitation had been extended only after victory was clearly locked up. He took the folded paper and glanced at it.
It was what he’d been waiting for. Qingaut Bathurst Exclusive Hotel, Suite 402. Hope you can join us. —Eric Roy
He folded the paper and passed it to Tej. “I’ll be there. Can I bring the camera?”
“Of course.” Roy’s assistant nodded and left.
The instant his back was turned, Tej stared at Marco with startled eyes and flicked a button on his camera. Just below the lens, a red light flashed beside the word “mute.” “Eric Roy?” he said. “You’re kidding me. That’s no coincidence.”
“Hey, Tej, you think your followers would like to see inside a Stomp Brawl after-party?” Marco asked. The vid jockey looked at him like he was crazy for even doubting it. Marco showed his teeth. “Then don’t ask.”
It hadn’t been difficult for Tej to turn up information on Eric Roy: he was the CEO of Zinmar-MacKenzie, one of the major players in Arctic resource extraction. He wasn’t one of the tightly buttoned, all-work type corporate executives, either. Young and energetic, he ran with a rich crowd and enjoyed a party. He hit his targets and spent his bonus appropriately—work hard, play hard, just like the roughnecks farther down the corporate ladder of the North. He wasn’t shy about it.
He wasn’t shy about his love of Stomp Brawl either. Word was that Roy had even gone a few rounds in a couple of local fights. More often, though, he was among the wealthy fans who travelled the world to see a tournament in person. The photo Jameson had given Marco turned out to be a frame capture from video of a Stomp Brawl after-party in Mumbai.
With a tournament in his own backyard, how could he not be in Qingaut?
How could he not invite the rising star of the tournament, a man with Hollywood looks and the attention of half the net, to his own after-party?<
br />
Marco tipped his head back and looked up the height of the atrium at the crowded balconies overhead. The Qingaut Bathurst Exclusive was up there. Posh suites. No mirrored window substitutes there. They would have real windows looking outside, plus a balcony overlooking the open space of the atrium. The figures that leaned over the railings were indistinct, blurred by the bright lights that illuminated the ring, made silhouettes by the midnight sun that lit up Qingaut’s night and glowed through the atrium’s glass roof, but somewhere up there was Eric Roy. Waiting for his killer.
The bell rang once, calling the fighters back. Marco dropped his gaze, sipped again from the water bottle, tossed it away. “Let’s end this,” he growled and stepped out into the ring.
Tej screamed encouragement at him, but his shouts were lost in the roar of the crowd and even that was only background noise in Marco’s ears. Junk Pile came out cautiously, a little unsteady on his feet. Marco dogged around him like a surfer on the waves of the crowd. Junk tried to track him, lurching around in a circle, heavy muscles bunched, hands raised in defence.
Marco struck fast and hard. He lunged under Junk Pile’s big, slow hands, yanked at his legs, and threw a shoulder right into his gut. Junk slammed onto his back hard enough to send tremors through the canvas. He tried to kick as he went down in an attempt to ward off his opponent but Marco kept hold of his legs and threw them back, pressing Junk’s massive shoulders against the mat. A fist jabbed up. It would have been a weak blow from anyone else, but from Junk it could have been enough to daze him. Marco wove to the side. Someone else might have been afraid. Marco rode the rush of his fear.
He ground down on Junk Pile, forcing his hips even further back and trapping the outthrust arm between his side and Junk’s own thigh. There was nothing the muscle-bound Frankenstein could do but try to batter at Marco’s lower back. Not even his strength could give him the leverage to do any damage. Junk struggled against the compression, fighting to draw breath as much as he fought to break free. Bloodshot eyes suddenly filled with panic.
Marco drove his fist hard against the side of Junk Pile’s skull, hammering at it until those frightened eyes rolled back and Junk’s body went limp under his. It happened so suddenly Marco almost fell over. For a moment he was face to unconscious face with his opponent.
Blood trickled out Junk Pile’s ear.
Marco heaved himself upright and thrust both arms high as the roar of the crowd filled Qingaut.
“When you’ve won enough fights, he’s going to want to meet you,” said Jameson. “He likes meeting the top Brawl fighters. He likes having them around him and he’s got the money to make it happen.” He shrugged. “Not that it takes much from what I’ve seen.”
Marco’s arms protested in silent agony as he curled a weight that was almost more than he had been able to press before. Dr. Ting might have given him muscles but they needed to be maintained. “So then what?” he asked through clenched teeth. “Roy meets me, I get him alone, and then I . . . do the job?”
He couldn’t make himself say the words even though the fear behind them brought a warm trickle of satisfaction with it. His breath caught a little on his exhale as he lowered the weight. Jameson gave a smug smile, maybe at his squeamishness, maybe at the effect of the dopamine switch. “What exactly do you think I want you to do, Marco?”
A few crazy ideas had run through Marco’s head. “Go ninja on him. Break his neck. Shoot him. Strangle him.” He pumped the weight hard, trying to focus on the strain of exertion and not the artificial pleasure of his fear. He looked Jameson in the eye. “You could have stuck a bomb inside me.”
Jameson actually laughed. The laugh was like his smile, all show and no substance. “You think I’m some kind of monster?” The grin stretched wide, showed teeth. “I just want you to shake Eric Roy’s hand.”
Marco dropped the weight, letting it crash into the floor. The impact made his feet tingle. Jameson didn’t even blink.
“Well, not just shake his hand.” The man in the blue suit—always the same blue suit—held out his right hand, spreading it wide, and motioned for him to do the same. Marco’s palm was red and hot from the workout, ringed with yellowed calluses at the base of the fingers. Jameson traced a circle on his own palm. “You’ve got one more mod, single-use. Trigger it—we’ll show you how—and you’ll secrete a strong contact neurotoxin. It becomes inactive very quickly when exposed to air, five seconds or so, but it has excellent transdermal absorption properties.”
A chill ran up Marco’s spine. “I’m going to poison Roy with a handshake.”
“Or any other way you can get your hand on his skin,” Jameson said. “Whatever flicks your switch. It will work better in public, though, because it takes about fifteen minutes for the toxin to do its work and by the time Roy’s kicking on the floor, I want you gone. Just walk away and no one will even think you were involved. How many times do people shake hands at a party or in a crowd?”
The chill didn’t leave him. “I won’t poison myself?”
“Do poison dart frogs worry about licking each other? Relax. We made sure you’re resistant to the toxin. You’ll be fine. You can’t trigger it by accident and because the neurotoxin decays so rapidly, you’re not going to accidentally poison anyone else. It’s idiot-proof.”
Marco’s gut kicked over. “Someone’s going to figure it out.”
“That’s where your cover comes in again. Make sure your camera man is with you. You’ll have a video record of your alibi and the world’s largest pool of witnesses.”
Marco looked at Jameson with narrowed eyes. Jameson’s plastic smile didn’t falter. “You think I want you getting caught?” he asked. “I look after my people. You just worry about winning fights, getting famous, and making that one handshake. That’s not too much for you, is it?”
Roy’s employer was the key and the answer turned out to be no farther away than Marco’s Stomp Brawl registration pack, tucked inside a slick little display about the history of Qingaut. Once a village so small its official population was zero because no one lived there year round, the whole port complex had been developed early in the century by a consortium of seven resource companies looking for a cheaper way to get their goods out of the Arctic. Over the years, companies merged, were bought, sold, and traded between corporations like hockey cards, until the seven members of the consortium had been consolidated into two: Dutta Geological and Zinmar-MacKenzie.
And if Eric Roy was CEO of Zinmar-MacKenzie, Marco had a pretty good idea that Jameson worked for Dutta. Maybe at a distance, through a twisting maze of corporate entities, but he worked for them. Canada’s largest Arctic port was under the thumb of just two corporations and Marco would bet that soon it would be in the hands of just one. People had been killed for a lot less. Exactly how Roy’s death would help consolidate power for Dutta Geological he didn’t know, but Jameson probably had a plan for that, too.
Marco took a deep breath as the elevator—two big bouncers who could have stepped right out of Stomp Brawl super-heavy turned it into a private lift—stopped at the fourth floor of the Qingaut Bathurst Exclusive. Fear and excitement tore around in him like weasels on acid.
“Easy,” said Tej. “It’s just a party. You kicked ass in the ring. What do you have to worry about?”
“Just stay close.”
“Hero, this camera is not leaving you all night!”
The doors of the elevator opened onto a party that had spilled out of suite 402 and colonized the hall. Marco recognized other victors of Stomp Brawl bouts, their faces more bruised and swollen than his. A couple gave him a nod of recognition; others didn’t look up from earnest conversations with well-dressed, but not-so-well-connected fans. Another bouncer at the door made sure they kept to their place on the fringe. He glanced over Marco and Tej, though, and ushered them right on through.
Walking into the party proper was like walking into a warm embrace that was only a
lingering touch away from turning into something more. Smells unlike anything the Big Alley had to offer enveloped Marco. Good food. Fresh meat that smelled of herbs and spices instead of stale fry oil. Wine and liquor—a pretty, young server slipped past with a tray of cocktails that looked hand-mixed rather than pre-poured, leaving a lingering scent of lemon and orange in her wake. None of the sweat, exhaust, and industrial grease that pervaded the rest of Qingaut.
Not that the atmosphere was refined. The music was as loud and driving as a nightclub and nearly as varied. Marco found he couldn’t tell who in the crowd was corporate, who was just extremely rich, and who was simply there as a companion or entertainment. The mods they wore were subtle, the cosmetic enhancements less so. Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Mandarin, and Hindi crossed the room as frequently as English.
The lights of the Stomp Brawl ring flooded through the windows that formed one wall of the suite. The balcony on the other side was crowded with cheering guests. A roar signalled a solid hit from the fight going on below—a roar echoed inside the suite as the scene was repeated on the dozens of vid-screens mounted on every available surface.
“Why come all the way to Qingaut if you’re not going to bother watching the tournament live?” he asked Tej. The vid-jockey just laughed.
“You think it’s too much? Sometimes just being close is enough.”
Not all the screens were set to streams of the fight. Marco caught sight of his own image on one of the biggest screens. Someone had set it to follow Tej’s feed. A little murmur spread through the crowd as they recognized their own party in the background of the shot, and turned around to look for him. Scattered shouts and applause broke out when they spotted him. Marco’s wave of acknowledgement came more out of numb reflex than any conscious thought.
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