Up and Coming: Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

by Anthology

  Uncle Polly was watching him. “Well?”

  Carr looked up and nodded. “The Martian wants to see me.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Martian’s name was Bax Gant, and he was the co-owner of the Zero Gravity Fighting Association. His business partner, Terran entertainment industry tycoon Bran Merkel, was the money behind the ZGFA, but only occasionally seen on Valtego; Gant managed all the day-to-day operations. He was called the Martian because he probably was the best known Martian on a city-station that was still overwhelmingly Terran, but also because, in zeroboxing circles, he was the sort of singularly influential personality who merited a the when spoken about, such as, the Bossman or the Bastard. The Martian.

  Carr stood in Gant’s office, trying not to look uncomfortable. He’d gone to the clinic for an injection of rehab/repair nanos; between the pricey cell-mending molecules and a dose of ibuprofen, post-fight pain wasn’t the main problem. He’d had his receiver fixed too, and he wasn’t even badly hungover from last night’s after party. It was just that Bax Gant’s office felt like a walk-in refrigerator. Comfortable for a man from Mars, but not for someone raised in balmy Toronto. He imagined that Gant must feel the reverse; the whole rest of Valtego probably felt like a mild steam bath to him. No wonder he seemed to live in his office.

  “Sit down, Luka,” Gant said. “Coffee?”

  Carr was about to decline, then remembered that he had just finished a fight and could eat and drink whatever he wanted to for a while. “Sure, thanks,” he said, and sat down in the chair in front of the desk. The last time he’d been in here was the day after his sixteenth birthday. Uncle Polly had sat next to him. The Martian had said, “You’re training them from the womb now, are you, Pol?” and then turned a skeptical look on Carr. “The pros aren’t like the ammys, kid. You think you’re ready?” and Carr had said, “Yes, sir,” but he’d been scared. This morning though, Uncle Polly had cupped Carr’s chin in his hand and said, “You’re not a kid anymore. You’re a pro fighter with a good record and you’re going to get re-signed, or I’ll eat my towel. Now go in there and talk to that domie, man-to-man.”

  Gant filled two mugs from the pot on the counter and walked back to the desk. He was the shortest Martian Carr had ever seen, barely six feet tall. Decades spent in Valtego’s nearly Earth-level artificial gravity had thickened him, rounded him out a little. The faint hint of red in his hair suggested some European ancestry from way, way back. The man could almost pass as Terran, though the telltale sheen of his dark, radiation resistant skin gave him away.

  He set one of the mugs in front of Carr, slipping a coaster underneath so as not to mar the surface of the mahogany desk. Real mahogany wood, not synthetic. There was a lot of wood in the room—the desk and chairs, the floor, the shelves that held mementos and photos from big fights Gant had promoted. Precious few non-agricultural trees on Mars; the man had a borderline obsession with furniture and objects made from natural materials. Behind his desk was a bamboo framed watercolor print of Olympus Mons at sunset. “Nice painting,” Carr said. “Have you been there?”

  “I’m from Tharsis,” Gant said, sitting down across from him. “Never appreciated the view until I left.”

  “Nice place?”

  “Used to be. Crowded now. Too many tourists.” His snorted at this irony, and Carr wondered what passed for crowded on a planet with a fraction of Earth’s population. The Martian drank from his mug and studied Carr from across the desk. Carr lifted his chin. He could have had his bruised face and swollen jaw fixed up at the clinic, but it was ironclad tradition for zeroboxers to keep their facial wounds for at least a few days—the nastier-looking, the better. Gant said, “What’s your story, Luka? Parents were refugees and shipped off-planet? Father was a drunk and used to beat you?”

  Carr shook his head.

  “I didn’t think so. You’re not angry the way some of them are. So why do you fight in the Cube?”

  Carr shrugged. “I’m good at it.”

  “Hmm. After last night, I don’t suppose I can disagree. Five-one; not too shabby for a guy born on soil.”

  “The ‘one’ got away from me.”

  “That’s what they always say.” Gant leaned forward onto his desk with folded arms. “What did you think of the crowd last night?”

  “It was big.”

  Gant nodded, pleased. “Sold out stadium, and millions more watching on the Systemnet.” He jerked his head back towards the painting behind his desk. “I left Mars twenty-five years ago, saying I was going to grow the sport with Terrans. I was practically laughed off the Red Planet. All the best zeroboxers in the Martian system, the top dogs in the Weightless Combat Championship, you know what they said to me? Everyone on the old planet is a planet rat. The most daring and inventive Terrans left generations ago to build Mars and the station settlements. Why would a place with countless gravity-dependent sports want anything different? It’ll never catch on.”

  Carr took a swallow of strong coffee. “Guess they were wrong.”

  “Guess so.” Gant jutted his lower jaw slightly forward as he sized Carr up like a buyer considering an item at auction. Carr did his best to wait without fidgeting, without thinking too much about how his future depended on coming down on the good side of this man’s ruthless business acumen. Whether you loved or hated the Martian was largely correlated with how useful he thought you were.

  Gant picked up his thin screen and tapped it. “Have you looked at your subscriber stats or media hits?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Good; if your head gets too inflated, you might get the mistaken idea you can weasel a better deal out of me.” He handed the screen to Carr. “This is what you’ve been waiting for.”

  Carr took the screen, suddenly glad that the meat locker temperature kept his hands from sweating. He read the new contract quickly, then read it again, his eyes lingering on all the key numbers. His heart began to dance a jig in his chest. Three years, ten more fights guaranteed, his pay starting close to double what he’d made on his first six matches, and rising steadily if he won. He’d thought Gant might low-ball and make him negotiate, but this was more than Uncle Polly had told him to expect.

  His hand hovered over the fingerprint signature box, not quite believing his fortune.

  “Show it to whoever you need to—your coach, your lawyer—but I’m not going to bullshit you: it’s a good deal.”

  Carr pressed his finger to the screen, waited for the confirmation and handed it back to Gant. “Thank you. Really.” His voice had gone a little squeaky; he cleared his throat. “This is what I want to do. What I’ve always wanted to do.”

  “Your contract isn’t a payout. It’s an investment,” Gant said. “The ZGFA’s investment in you. Don’t think for a second this means you’ve made it, that you don’t have to train your ass off harder than ever to keep putting on a good show in the Cube.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Good. Because there are a hundred guys out there who would eat each other alive to take your place.” Gant smiled, not in a cruel way, just: that’s the way it is. “One other thing. You’re getting a brandhelm.”

  Carr’s eyebrows furrowed. Marquee athletes had brandhelms, of course, and so did every other famous person, from celebrity chefs to CEOs, but Carr was less than a couple of years into a pro career. “I can’t afford a brandhelm,” he said. “I mean, the deal is fine, but it’s not like I’ve got extra cash right now.”

  “It’s your lucky day then,” said the Martian. “Merkel Media Corporation hired heavy on the marketing side and Bran has me convinced we should use the extra manpower up here, promoting our up-and-coming zeroboxers. I’m assigning someone to you.” He drummed his blunt-nailed fingers on the desk. “Like I said, an investment. Just to be clear, I don’t do this for every hotshot who comes into my office for his first contract renewal.”

  “No, sir.”

  Gant stood up and Carr stood with him. They shook hands, Carr’s fingers numb with
cold, Gant’s warm and fleshy.

  Do it, Carr urged himself. He had, somehow, miraculously, made it into the Martian’s good books, at least for now. Go on. Ask. “Another thing. Jay Ferrano was the third-ranked lowmass zeroboxer. Now I am.” He steeled his gaze. “I want to fight for the title.”

  The Martian grunted. “Every fighter who’s ever been in here has given me that line. They all have the same dream as you do. Some of them, I bet big on—the way I just bet on you—and they never lived up to their promise.” He eyed Carr, calculating. “You’re not special, Luka. Not yet.”

  ***

  From Zeroboxer by Fonda Lee. ©2015 by Fonda Lee. Use by permission from Flux Books, www.fluxnow.com

  Universal Print(Short story)

  by Fonda Lee

  Originally published by Crossed Genres

  “Well, the coolant system is fucked.” Ray Cutter emerged from the underbelly of the starboat. He pulled off his grease-stained Universal Print Delivery & Service jacket and threw it into the dirt at his feet. “We’re not getting off the planet.”

  Art Strung stared at the grounded vessel, then turned in a slow, disbelieving circle. The afternoon Thedesian sun beat down on the scrubby, arid landscape: dusty, rolling purple hills dotted with copses of bushy blackish-green trees, and in the distance, piled rock formations that made Art think of enormous heaps of animal dung.

  I’m screwed, Strung decided. I am so going to be fired.

  “We’ve got to call this in,” he said.

  “No way.” Cutter kicked the side of the boat. “If we call in, we’re done for. They’re going to ask why we’re so far off course, and how the hell we ended up in the Thedesian system. No one is going to believe we jumped into it by accident when we’re supposed to be making a delivery to Phobos. They’ll search the ship and check our flight logs.”

  “Yes, do tell.” Strung’s lip curled back. “How did we end up jumping into low orbit over Thedesia? Who the hell mixes up the coordinates for Tharsis with those for Thedesia? Huh?”

  “It was an easy mistake! Anyone could have done it!”

  Strung found a flat rock in the shade and sank down onto it. A small eight-limbed purple lizard scurried in front of his foot and under a nearby prickly plant, waving its feelers and chittering indignantly. He felt a tension headache coming on.

  Cutter was pacing back and forth, purple dust puffing around his feet. “I’m not going to jail, man, not for this small time stuff. They’d lock us up with real smugglers, hardened space dogs. Those guys would eat us alive.” He shook his head, the usual slack insolence of his face replaced, for once, with actual worry. “We’d be better off staying on this remote rock forever.”

  “This is all your fucking fault,” said Strung, because it was. Though, Strung admitted, he had been stupid enough to a) help his serially unemployed old school buddy get a job as a deliveryman at Universal Print in the first place and b) let him start with the little side trips that had inadvertently landed them both in the Thedesian desert.

  “Okay,” Cutter said. He stopped pacing and ran a hand through his hair. “Okay. We get on the first transport back to the Terran system. When we get there, we tell them we got hijacked at our last stop and the thugs took off with all the cargo. We barely escaped with our lives.”

  Strung glared at him. “How often do you think transports come out to Thedesia? I don’t think this planet even has a commercial spaceport. Who knows how long we could be out here.” Sweat trickled down the back of Strung’s neck and between his shoulder blades. He wondered if he could get a message to Renata to send help, but if she found out what he’d been up to, she’d kill him. Then she’d leave him. He hauled himself to his feet and stalked back to the starboat. “We need to find a mechanic. Then we burn the contraband, get the hell out, and hope U.P. buys the story that we got hopelessly lost, and fires us instead of pressing charges.”

  Cutter stared after him. “Burn it? Are you out of your mind?”

  Strung opened the back cargo hatch and hauled the cover off the first printer, the one supposedly on delivery to a Mr. D. Sing living in New Rio, Phobos. It was a brand-new, high-capacity UP3122X: gleaming and sleek, in a neutral eggshell color that would complement any home decor. Strung threw the door open, reached inside with both arms, and swept out a dozen black canisters. They tumbled out of the printer and across the threshold of the cargo hatch, spilling out onto the ground.

  Cutter ran up with a howl of protest. “Do you know how much all that is worth?”

  “I don’t care! Do you know how much trouble it’s gotten us into?”

  Cutter fell to his knees and began collecting the fallen canisters like a child frantically gathering candy. “We’ll hide it. We’ll come back for it.” He swung his head from side to side, scanning the open wilderness for a suitable storage place. “Hey look!” He motioned with his chin toward the crest of the hill to the east. A plume of indigo dust was making its way down the slope toward them. Strung paused to squint at it. He could make out the shape of an approaching vehicle, bearing down fast.

  A huge wheeled buggy ground to a halt in front of them, sending up a storm of grit. A man hopped out of the front seat. He gaped at them. Then his tanned face broke into a grin, and he let out a bark of laughter. Strung couldn’t blame him. They were probably the most ridiculous thing he’d ever seen: two Universal Print deliverymen, frozen wide-eyed amid the small pile of black canisters scattered behind their broken starboat, steaming in the desert.

  The Thedesian pointed to the starboat and said a bunch of words.

  “Uh, we don’t speak Thedesian,” said Cutter.

  “It’s German, you idiot,” Strung hissed.

  The man pushed up the rim of his broad hat and adjusted the woven belt around his loose-fitting tan clothes. He pointed to the boat again and said in halting Standard, “You need fix.”

  “Yes! Yes, need fix,” Strung agreed. “Can you help us?”

  The man pointed from the boat back to the enormous dune buggy. “I take to town, yes?”

  Cutter and Strung looked at each other. “Yes, that would be great,” said Strung.

  The man tapped the middle of his left palm with a finger.

  “We can pay.” Cutter took out his pay tag and held it up.

  The Thedesian made a scornful face. “Real money only.”

  Cutter looked to Strung in confusion. “What does he mean?”

  “Ah, crap.” Strung glanced again at the Thedesian’s simple, woven clothes and callused hands. “I read about this. Thedesia is some kind of alternative lifestyle colony. The people here choose to live in traditional ways and don’t allow any Interstellar Age technology. I think they still use physical currency.”

  “Physical currency?” Cutter frowned. “Like what? Pieces of gold?” He followed the Thedesian’s curious gaze and in a flash of inspiration, snatched up one of the black canisters and thrust it at the man. “How about that?”

  The Thedesian unscrewed the lid and peered inside. He sniffed it. Then he smiled, closed the canister, and tucked it under an arm. Without another word, he got back into the buggy, pulled it in front of the delivery boat, and dragged out a pair of towing cables. He eyed the other canisters that Cutter and Strung hastily stuffed back into the ship’s cargo hold. “You sell?”

  “No, no, we don’t sell,” Strung said.

  “We’ll make an exception for you, of course,” Cutter amended quickly. Strung gave him an evil look.

  They rode into town on the back seat of the buggy, towing the ship on its hover runners behind them. It was not a long trip, just enough time for Strung to have a good angry stew about how he’d gotten into this mess. It was not supposed to have been a big deal. Cutter knew this guy, who knew this guy, and all they had to do was take a little detour once in a while and pick up several canisters of the highest-grade Siryean white snuff, hide it inside the printers they were delivering, and take it through customs and inspection to a distributor on Tharsis for a little dut
y-free kickback. The printer had a tamper-proof activity log, but as long as they didn’t turn it on, no one would know they were using such an expensive piece of machinery as a container.

  Strung had not liked it at first, just as he had not liked it when Cutter had tried his hand at breeding Andromedean fighting rats, or when he’d borrowed two paychecks worth of money to buy asteroid real estate derivatives that “couldn’t go down” but promptly had. Not to mention the time he’d conveniently skipped town and left Strung to explain why the rental car smelled like monkey piss. The exotic pet trade in Gliesian pygmy tamarins, it turned out, was not remotely worth the trouble.

  Yes, he really should have known better this time. But Cutter had been persuasive. “It’s easy money, pickup and delivery only. No risk. No one at a huge company like U.P. will notice an extra jump here or there for ‘personal errands,’ and even if they did, no one cares. People do it all the time.”

  “I’m coming up on three years at the company, Cutter,” Strung said. Being a deliveryman was far from stimulating, but it was easy, and it sure beat some of his previous jobs. “I don’t want to get fired over one of your stupid ideas.”

  “Look, I set this whole thing up, but I’m going to split the money fifty-fifty with you. How about that?”

  In the end, the money had been too tempting. Renata was always on his back about getting a bigger place, and a better printer. “You work at U.P. and they don’t even pay you enough to afford a decent model,” she griped. “That’s bullshit.” He agreed with her. With a stream of extra money earned on the side, plus the employee discount, he could get a brand new UP3122X. It was the revolutionary, fully programmable model, capable of printing in 546,455 material combinations, updated daily with all the latest apparel, accessories, household items, and edibles. It boasted unheard-of scan and replication accuracy, and could complete jobs in a fraction of the time taken by previous models. With a UP3122X, he could print Renata that hot new dress she wanted, the boots to go with it, new fixtures for the bathroom, and custom decals for his bike. When Strung had put on the jacket with the Universal Print logo and climbed into the delivery boat mere hours ago, he’d run a hand longingly down the side of the UP3122X and murmured, “I’m going to have one just like you soon.”