by John Dixon
Moments later, the doors at the top of the ramp banged open, and the Russians hurried into the room, carrying the massive fighter between them, their faces twisted with strain and panic. The lightweight shouted. The middleweight wept. All color had fled the face of the old trainer, who stared down at his champion with a look of stunned disbelief.
Fighter 32 stared back with empty eyes and an open mouth, his head tilted at a nightmare angle.
THIRTEEN
CARL STOOD IN SILENCE among the fighters gathered upon the shore of black sand. The inky surface of the lake winked with torchlight. The arena and upper floors were utterly dark. After twelve bloody hours, the first round of fights was finished. Now the sconces along the glistening stone walls guttered around the lake, dimming everything to gloom.
“Warriors.” The voice, inhumanly deep, spoke from all directions. Carl recognized it at once: the bearded man. “The Few salute your valor . . . and value your sacrifice.”
Light shone down from above. Carl looked up and saw a giant television screen glowing fifty feet overhead. It’s underneath the octagon, he realized.
On the screen fluttered a simple flag of three bars: white, blue, and red. Music started then, a national anthem that Carl found stirring despite the foreign lyrics.
“We honor Fighter 32,” the voice said, and on-screen the flag vanished, replaced by the scowling face of the Russian heavyweight. “May we all die such an honorable death.”
Honorable? Carl thought. He’d seen the fight on replay, during the hours between the tournament and Kruger’s summoning them here. There had been no particular honor to the death. Just one guy suplexing the other headfirst into the floor. The only thing you could really call it was quick.
“Russia,” the voice of the Few said, “has lost a hero.”
Someone nearer the water started sobbing.
A hollow thump drew Carl’s attention left, to the far end of the lake, where shimmered a ghostly white square—an illuminated doorway in the cave wall, he realized—and a boat trundled forth from the light, slid down a short ramp, and splashed into the dark water. The music played on, and the vessel—it was a sailboat, Carl saw now, with a Russian flag serving as the sail—drifted slowly out onto the lake. Carl saw no one on board, just a dark shape, maybe seven feet long at the center.
That’s him, he realized. That’s Fighter 32, wrapped in some kind of shroud.
He heard a faint creaking sound—the taut straining of whatever hidden towrope was dragging the boat—and that noise triggered the awful memory of another funeral, ropes creaking as his mother’s casket was lowered into the grave years earlier. His throat tightened as he remembered that day, remembered the breeze and the sound of the droning preacher, and how hard he’d fought the tears and how he’d cried anyway and how angry he’d been at himself for crying. So absurd now, but true—he’d been furious at himself for giving in and crying, as if he’d let his mother down rather than paying her the only tribute he had left.
The boat stopped at the center of the lake, directly in front of them. Something huffed, and flames leapt up on the deck, encircling the shrouded figure.
For a second, he assumed something had malfunctioned and caught fire, but then he understood. This was no accident. The burning boat was a pyre. Feeling stunned and disgusted, he remembered another of Stark’s history lessons. They’re giving Fighter 32 a Viking burial.
Near the water, sobbing became wailing.
Flames raced across the deck and up the sail, engulfing the entire boat, which glowed blindingly bright at the heart of the gloom.
Averting his eyes, Carl saw a strange sight. Along the opposite shore stood several large black birds, as hunched and gloomily attentive as funeral mourners.
Weird, Carl thought. Though not so weird as the knowledge that a fighter he’d seen earlier this same day, very much alive, was now burning at the center of the lake.
The fire burned fast and hard, the shape at its center growing indistinct, and then the boat was coming apart. The mast tilted and fell in a line of fluttering flame.
Carl could smell it now, and thankfully, he smelled only smoke and nothing else. Nothing cooking, he thought, and his stomach gave a slow roll of revulsion.
Poor guy never expected this, he thought, remembering how huge and strong and confident Fighter 32 had looked, walking toward the ring.
Then Arthur James’s voice cooed in his head, Ain’t no guarantees in fighting, son.
The boat sunk slowly, the flames hanging on feebly like the final breaths of a dying man. Overhead, the TV screen, still bearing the snarling image of Fighter 32, faded to black.
Around him, the crowd started breaking apart. Some teams talked as they left, and that didn’t seem right to Carl, and when he felt his team looking at him, waiting for his signal, he decided to stand right there until the last flame went out, his own meager tribute to a real person, someone who had been and no longer was, a fighter whose charred and broken bones would lie at the bottom of this dark lake forever.
Someone bumped into him, jolting him from his thoughts. It wasn’t until after she’d offered a quiet apology that he realized she had dipped her hand into his jacket.
A life spent around criminals brought him instantly alert. Had she just pickpocketed him? Before he could calculate the absurdity of that worry—he had no possessions here, not even a room key—his hand closed on the folded piece of paper she’d left in his pocket.
Half turning, he saw her walking away under the arm of a dark-haired fighter.
Juliet.
He pulled the folded paper from his pocket.
Out on the lake, the last remnants of the boat sputtered and died—but not before he read the single word written on the square of paper: Carl.
FOURTEEN
AN HOUR LATER, Carl paced back and forth in the kitchen.
The rebroadcast of the three-hour lightweight bout played out its bloody drama on the common-room TV. No sense scouting that one, considering the damage both guys took. Neither would be able to fight the next day.
What you should be doing, Carl told himself again, is studying the other fights. Thanks to the chip, reviewing memory segments was usually easy, but no matter how hard he tried, his thoughts kept coming back to the note. The chip had no emotional kill switch. He was stuck being human.
Was it really her?
“You’re going to wear a hole in the floor, boss,” Tex said.
“Yes, Carl,” Agbeko said, a smile on his swollen face. He had recovered remarkably over the hours since his bout but still looked awful. “Please join us.”
Carl paused at the edge of the dining room, where Tex and Agbeko sat, drinking sodas and passing a bag of cheese curls back and forth. Their fingertips were bright orange.
Davis’s were red. He leaned over Agbeko, still working the cuts. “Keep ice on that.”
Agbeko hooah-ed and raised not the ice bag, which sat melting on the table, but the Coke can to his swollen brow.
“No sense stitching them,” Davis said, pinching shut and retaping a cut alongside Agbeko’s eye. “You even blink, they’re going to open up again.”
Tex slapped Agbeko’s knee. “How about you keep your hands up next time, huh?”
Agbeko chuckled. “That is good advice. Carl, why did you not give me this advice?”
Carl forced a smile, feeling like he might explode. He needed to prep for the upcoming fights but just wanted to fast-forward the clock to midnight.
“Laugh it up,” Davis said. He’d fastened the cut with butterfly bandages and wiped at the yellow goop oozing out between them. “Keep taking punches, you’ll lose an eye. Or worse.”
Nobody asked what he meant. They didn’t have to. For a moment, they were as silent as they had been at the lake, watching the pillar of flame burn upon the oil-black water.
Then she bumped into me, Carl thought, and remembered her hand in his pocket, there and gone, like the girl herself.
Stop, he told him
self again. Push her out of your head for now. Prepare for tomorrow.
“Lighten up, doc,” Tex said, plunging a hand into the cheese curls. “These guys won, remember?”
Nodding toward Carl, Davis said, “He won.” Then, looking at Agbeko, “Him, I’m not so sure.”
Agbeko, suddenly angry, pushed the medic’s hands away. “Why do you say this? Of course I won. Winning is my mission.”
Davis stepped back. “Be cool, baby. I’m just saying, you took some shots, you feel me?”
Tex said, “Yeah, your eye’s so swelled up, we could blindfold you with dental floss.”
Agbeko ignored this and continued glaring at Davis, who said, “Tomorrow, some other two-ton tough guy’s gonna try and take off your head. You ready for that?”
Agbeko came out of his chair. “Are you saying I will quit?”
Carl stepped between them and put a restraining hand on the hulking boy-soldier’s chest. He really didn’t feel like dealing with this now. Duty and distraction were already playing tug-of-war with his brain. “Enough.”
Agbeko glared at Davis but didn’t resist Carl. “I will never surrender.”
“That’s your whole problem,” Davis said. “You don’t know when to quit. What, didn’t you see the funeral?”
Agbeko’s voice went low and dangerous. “I am not afraid to die.”
“That’s it,” Carl said. “Sit down, Agbeko. And you, Davis, just drop it.”
Davis nodded knowingly, regarding him through hooded eyes. “Anything for the win, right, boss man?”
Carl’s face went hot. “What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing,” Davis said. “Nothing at all.” No apology in his voice. No fear, either.
For a second, they just stared at each other, Carl struggling against his temper, Davis looking down from his great height with loathing and something else . . . contempt, perhaps, or maybe disgust.
Seconds passed.
Then Tex cracked a joke about some guy walking into a room with a sheep in his arms. Everybody laughed, and the tense moment passed. The others went back to their cheese curls and sodas, and Carl retired to his room, determined to clear his head and study fighters until midnight.
It didn’t work.
He turned on his TV, then turned up the volume, trying and failing to block out the noise in the common room.
The replay of the long fight finally staggered to its inglorious finish, and the first pair of middleweights—one of whom could be his future opponent—came into the ring.
Focus, he told himself. Watch now, review the important stuff later. He needed to learn his opponents’ strengths and weaknesses, their traps and techniques, their habits and preferences.
Both middleweights were Asian. The similarities ended there. One Korean, the other Thai. The Korean relied heavily on his kicks, which were very fast—even flashy. The Thai sported a balanced attack, mixing hands and feet with knees and elbows. His kicks were slower, but he turned his hips into them, landing not with his feet but with his shins, targeting the Korean’s legs and rib cage.
Beyond the door, Tex shouted, “I told that old boy he could keep his fifty thousand dollars!” and the kitchen erupted with laughter.
Using the chip, Carl dialed down their distracting clamor, but this dialed down his TV, too, making the real problem—his wandering mind—even more obvious. He couldn’t stop thinking about Octavia.
The last time he’d seen her, she had been a ruined shell of a girl with empty eyes and unspeakable wounds. While he’d been in a coma, awaiting the operation, Dr. Vispera had tortured her into a catatonic state. Then Carl had surrendered his own freedom so that she might leave the island, receive medical treatment on the mainland, and one day start her life over, free in the world.
How had she gotten here? Why the disguise?
Juliet looked nothing like Octavia. It wasn’t just the surface stuff—her pallor, brown eyes, and the length and color of her hair—but her actual face, too, the shape of it, her nose and cheekbones, her lips, everything. Octavia’s face had been beautiful in a sweet, soulful way. This new face was still pretty but in a different way. Older, harder.
And yet hadn’t he sensed a faint familiarity, something in the way she moved? Yes, he had. Besides, only Octavia could have written that note. But what was she doing here?
Was she working for Stark?
With a ripple of jealousy, he wondered, And who is Romeo?
Her boyfriend. That much was obvious, the way they hung all over each other. He represented Phoenix Force’s Mexican camp. What was going on?
He unfolded the note, rereading the message inside.
Dear Carl,
I can’t believe it’s really you. I barely recognized you; you’ve grown so much. We have so much to talk about.
Tell no one about this or about me, okay? Not your team, not the guy I’m with. We have to pretend we don’t know each other. It’s very important—life and death.
Meet me here, where I gave you this. Tonight—at midnight.
She hadn’t signed it and hadn’t needed to. The handwriting was hers—and he remembered the note she’d given him back on Phoenix Island, which still lay atop the dusty ductwork in the book man’s room, next to the fading journal of Eric Flemmington.
Tonight at midnight . . .
What if it was a trap? What if she wasn’t really Octavia? Had Stark sent some imposter to test his loyalty?
Cheering surged on TV.
Carl shook free of his thoughts to see the Korean crumpled on the mat, the Thai with his bloody fists raised overhead.
He’d missed it. He’d started thinking about Octavia again, and he’d missed the fight, and now he couldn’t study the Thai kickboxer. What if he fought him next?
Get it together, he told himself. Focus on the fights. You can’t count on your teammates to win. It’s all on you. You have to win. Not everyone was going to drop like Gooder-than-I-think. These guys were dangerous. He saw now that the kickboxer had broken his opponent’s leg, but Carl had missed the technique, along with any setup or feint. Even the smallest tell—the dip of a shoulder or a habit of the eyes—would be valuable. . . .
But not as valuable as Octavia.
Could it really be her?
It didn’t seem possible . . . but the note had used her handwriting and his name—Carl, not Fighter 19—so who else could it be?
No one.
Unless . . .
On TV, the next set of guys he was supposed to be studying entered the ring.
Pay attention.
Out in the kitchen, more laughter. He heard the dink-dink-dink of an empty can hitting the tiled floor. Even more laughter.
He and Octavia used to laugh all the time.
Enough, he told himself, and turned off the TV. He needed to study the fighters but couldn’t, not like this. A glance at the clock told him he had an hour and a half before he needed to leave for the lake.
Time to dim down, then. It would mean missing an hour’s worth of fight footage, but so be it. He wasn’t able to concentrate now anyway. After an hour of reordering “sleep,” he would be able to focus.
Leaning back against his headboard, he slowed his blood circulation and respiration until his heart barely beat and his lungs hardly cycled. Consciousness dimmed, but his mind’s eye still pictured his gray-eyed friend.
He tried to dim deeper, but his mind pictured Octavia laughing.
What was this? He’d never before failed at inducing this meditative sleep. He had to get his act together, had to rest so that he could study these fighters.
But then, instead of sliding into unconsciousness, his mind leapt to an incredible realization that brought him instantly to full wakefulness.
The last six months, he’d been playing the part of the faithful apprentice, biding his time so that he might overthrow Stark.
The real reason he had endured this apprenticeship, however, was to keep Octavia safe.
If the girl he was about
to meet really was Octavia, he didn’t have to study the fighters. He didn’t even have to fight. They could run away from this place together. Tonight.
He hopped up and started pacing again.
They could head back to the world and start over, fresh and free. He could place anonymous phone calls and let somebody else deal with Stark. He could make money fighting, and he knew guys in Philly who could get them fake IDs, social security numbers, everything. A new life . . .
Back and forth he paced, envisioning this incredible possibility, until the clock read 11:45.
Time to go, he thought, time to see Octavia, and his heart gave an excited flutter. It wasn’t one of those romantic lilts you got when you saw someone you liked. Back on Phoenix Island, they had been very close, and he had really liked her, but she had never been his girlfriend. They hadn’t even kissed. All of that was still in him, somewhere—and who knew, over time, if maybe they could get together like that—but for now, the flutter in his chest was simpler than romance. He was about to see his favorite person in the world, a girl he’d feared he would never see again.
He went to his window to check the arena, pulled the curtain aside, and jumped back, startled.
Then he laughed and lowered his fists.
A Krebs hawk sat on his windowsill, staring in at him. It had the size and muscular build of a seagull but a shorter neck and a bigger head, like a crow, and its feathers were ash gray streaked in charcoal. Volcano camouflage, Carl thought with a smile, still feeling stupid for getting startled like that.
The bird tilted its head and stared, studying him, then flew away.
Carl laughed and went to the window, where he caught one wide arc of the fleeing bird’s looping ascent before it disappeared into the upper darkness. Down below, the arena was dim and empty.
Good. Time to go.
FIFTEEN
AT TEN TILL MIDNIGHT, Carl left his room and stepped into the noise and flashing light of the common room. Tex sat at the center of the couch with his feet up on the coffee table and his arms spread out behind him, laughing at some stupid movie with girls skiing in bikinis. The area around him, strewn with soda cans and chip bags and candy wrappers, looked like a murder scene—if the victim was a vending machine.