by John Dixon
Tex said, “Checking up on me, hoss? Think maybe I ordered a case of Budweiser?”
On TV, a couple of grinning dorks raised their brows and skied after the girls.
“No, I’m going to see if they’ve posted tomorrow’s matchups,” Carl said, doing his best to sound casual.
“Suit yourself,” Tex said. “Old Tex is going to sit here and watch the rest of Snow Bunny Bungalow.” He picked up a sack of M&M’s and tilted a rainbow of candy into his mouth.
“Have fun,” Carl said. Stupid move, pounding junk before a fight, but it didn’t really matter how Tex prepped. He was meat. Fighting spirit wasn’t enough. He didn’t belong here.
Neither did Agbeko.
Carl had fooled himself for a while, thinking maybe Agbeko could help bring home the team title, but after today, he knew that the big heavyweight, despite his strength and heart, couldn’t last.
That’s why you got so mad at Davis, Carl told himself. Because you knew he was right.
But not about that anything for a win crap. If Agbeko got into real trouble, Carl would throw in the towel.
Carl stepped from the apartment into the sweet-scented hallway and forgot all about the rest of his team.
This was it.
By the time he reached the elevator, his heart was jackhammering, and he was sweating like a seventh-grader on his first date. He dialed back his heart rate and temperature and felt better at once, though the underlying anxiety remained. Was it really Octavia?
He pressed the L button, and a moment later, the doors opened, revealing the vast gloomy space that was the subterranean lake and its beach of black sand. Torches flickered along the rock walls, creating an eerie twilight in this broad and vaulted cavern. With his heart pounding again, he stepped from the elevator.
The beach was empty.
He half expected Stark to come rising up out of the lake.
But there was no one. She hadn’t come.
He shivered as an emotional iceberg, huge and indistinct, drifted through his inner darkness. Disappointment came first, cutting through his excitement, but following after was a most unexpected emotion: relief. Why would he feel relief at not seeing Octavia?
Because none of this makes sense, he thought. Because she can’t really be here, and you’ve known that all along, and this is what it feels like when reality slides back into place.
Once again, his old enemy hope had sucker punched him. . . .
“Carl?”
He jumped at the voice and turned.
Dressed in black warm-ups embroidered with a green snake, she stepped from the deeper shadows between two torches along the near wall. She looked nothing like Octavia. Her eyes were dark, not gray; her skin was pale, not tanned; and her hair was light, not dark—no trace of white in the bangs—and a long blond braid draped like a serpent across her shoulder. None of these things fooled him any longer.
It was her.
Despite her disguise, he recognized her lean body, the shape of her legs and hips, the bend in her arms, the springy way she rode atop the balls of her feet, and the slight angle at which she held her head. Even more powerfully, in the microsecond that their eyes met, he could feel that it was her, a heady sensation that had nothing to do with the chip and everything to do with him, with her, with them—as if electrical energy had arced between them.
Octavia.
He tried to speak, tried to say her name, but couldn’t seem to make his throat and mouth work.
She stopped a few feet away, smiling.
He smiled back at her.
And there they stood, close enough to touch, both of them smiling yet waiting for something, locked in a strange paralysis he had never anticipated during countless hours spent dreaming of their reunion.
“It’s really you, isn’t it,” she said, and it was more of a statement than a question. “I could feel you coming down in the elevator. Oh, Carl—it really is you.”
He nodded, feeling stupid and stunned and happy. “Yeah, I’m really me.”
She exhaled laughter then—a kind of a breaking sound in her voice—and for a second, Carl thought she was going to cry, and he hoped she wouldn’t, because if she did, he might start up, too, as strange as that would be.
“And you’re really you? You’re really Octavia?”
She nodded.
“But you don’t look like you,” he said. “How—”
“Plastic surgery,” she said. “I needed a lot of work after what Vispera did to me, and they asked if I wanted a fresh start. A new identity, a new life, and a new face. I told them yes.”
“But your eyes . . .”
“Colored contacts,” she said, then smoothed a hand over her long blond braid. “Hair dye and extensions.”
“I don’t care what you look like,” he said. “I’m just glad you’re okay.” He reached out, and she slid her hands into his, and they stood there laughing and looking at each other.
“When I saw you in the Chop Shop,” she said, and paused, as if to gather courage. “I thought you were dead. Even later, when I knew you weren’t, it didn’t seem possible that you could survive. But I never gave up, Carl. I kept telling myself that you were tough and that you would make it, and I could feel you out in the world, and here you are. . . .”
Her voice broke, and he pulled her into an embrace.
She stiffened in his arms. She didn’t fight the hug or push him away, but she went rigid and did not hug him back.
This was a surprise. What was wrong with her? Was it Romeo? Maybe this felt wrong to her, like cheating or something, rather than old friends reuniting.
Whatever the case, he broke the hug and stepped back.
She looked at him. “What are you doing here, Carl?”
The question took him by surprise. “You told me to meet you here.”
She shook her head. “I mean here—the Funeral Games.”
“Fighting,” he said, thinking, obviously. “What are you doing here?”
She hesitated—and in that pause, he felt the distance she was for some unknown reason tending, like a fighter controlling the gap.
An unexpected wave of annoyance rolled over him. Why was she being like this? Then he noticed her hands. Even in this dim light, he could see the polka-dot scars where Vispera had burned her.
He touched one of these gently, and she flinched, pulling her hand away as if the wounds were still fresh. A kind of wildness sparked in her eyes, there and gone, fast as a muzzle flash.
“Sorry,” he said. “I— Octavia, what happened to you?”
She looked down at the black sand between them. “Months ago, I woke up in a Mexican hospital. No idea how I got there or how long I’d been . . . asleep . . . but there I was, skinny and pale and covered in scars, lying next to this pile of crazy drawings, and there was some guy in a suit sitting beside my bed, and—well, I really can’t talk about that. Not now, anyway.”
Trying to picture it, Carl said, “The suit, was that your boyfriend?”
She looked at him for a second as if she didn’t understand, then shook her head. “Don’t ask me about him. I can’t talk about him or what we’re doing. And please, whatever you do, pretend you don’t know me, okay? He can’t know. Carl, don’t make a face. This is serious. I mean it. Please, whatever you do, don’t let on that you and I know each other. All right?”
Carl nodded—but then a thought hit him. “Wait . . . Does he hurt you?” His knuckles throbbed at the thought of some jealous head case slapping Octavia. He would kill the guy. . . .
“No,” she said, and shook her head emphatically. “Nothing like that. I’m sorry, Carl, but I really can’t talk about him. I’ll tell you more later, but for now you’re just going to have to trust me, and please, please, please don’t tell anyone about any of this.”
Another wave of annoyance. “Well, if you can’t say anything, and I can’t ask questions, and we have to pretend we don’t know each other, why bring me down here in the first place?”
>
She pulled back a little, looking hurt. “Why would you even ask me that? I had to see you.” She stood a little straighter. “I would have said something sooner, but . . .”
He frowned. “Sooner? How long have you known that I was here?”
She spoke quietly. “Since the train.”
“And you didn’t—”
“You have to understand,” she said. “I didn’t know if you were you anymore.”
He laughed bitterly. “Who else would I be?”
Now it was her turn to frown. “You don’t look like you. You’re so tall and big now.”
He shrugged, implying the obvious: people grow.
“Then I saw Davis and that huge Phoenix Forcer.” She looked away, shaking her head, as if remembering the moment. “I thought maybe Stark was forcing you to fight, and these guys were escorting you, like guards or whatever, but then I realized—you were leading them.” Now she looked straight into his eyes. “Phoenix Force hunted us, Carl. Don’t you remember?”
“How could I forget?” he said. “But a lot has happened since then.”
“Back on the island,” she said, “I knew they might kill you, but I also knew they could never break you, never make you one of them. I truly believed in my heart that nothing in the world could make you stop fighting them—but now you’re what, the team captain?”
Her voice echoed off the stones.
“Keep it down,” he said. “You want guards to come down here, check out the noise?”
She tilted her head, as if to study him from a fresh angle. “What happened to you, Carl?”
“Lots of stuff, but not what you seem to think.” Who was she to interrogate him? He’d surrendered his freedom and suffered under Stark just to keep her safe. “I didn’t sell my soul.”
She raised her hands. “Look, you’re mad. . . . I get it. I was scared, Carl. I didn’t know what to think, so I decided to wait and watch. I’d probably still be waiting if that guy hadn’t died today. Then I had to say something. I had to warn you.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“Come on,” she said, and surprised him by taking his hand.
Part of him wanted to pull away and have this out—but most of him just loved the feel of her hand. Funny how something so simple as touch could defuse anger. They started walking around the lake.
“I need to show you something,” she said. “I discovered this place—well, my friend did, and he showed me—but we didn’t know what it was until the funeral.”
Her friend, Carl thought, bitterness seeping in again. The mysterious Romeo. Save your questions till the end, children. He was overjoyed to see her, but she was being so strange and secretive, and her presence here made zero sense. The horrible thought returned to him: Was she working for Stark? Had they brainwashed her, turned her into some type of test?
An absurd thought, of course. He only wished he had a better explanation.
“It’s right around here,” she said, when they reached the far end of the lake. She led him up the boat ramp to the huge opening in the wall. She pulled him across the threshold, and automatic lights snapped to life, illuminating the immense chamber.
“Whoa,” he said.
Dozens of sailboats filled the chamber. They stood in three neat rows separated by conveyor belts that led to the ramp. Each vessel was identical to the one they had watched burn, with one exception: the sails. He saw many flags represented, including at least three Stars-and-Stripes sails. Taken together, the fleet made a profoundly strange sight here at the bottom of this volcanic mountain tucked away from the world.
“Do you see?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I see a lot of boats.”
“Look,” she said, pointing.
He tracked her arm to the far aisle, where a red phoenix burned brightly against black sailcloth.
“Okay,” he said. “A Phoenix Island sail. So what?”
“Correction. Three Phoenix Island sails. Three boats, three fighters,” she said. “Don’t you get it, Carl? They’re prepared to burn everybody.”
He stared out at the boats, which sat in silence, waiting for their shattered cargo, waiting to burn. Then he turned to her, forcing a smile. “Not us, Octavia. We’re not going to burn.”
“I know you’re a great fighter, but this isn’t a boxing tournament.”
He shook his head. “I don’t need to fight. I came here to win this thing—for you. This changes everything. You change everything.”
She looked puzzled, almost afraid. “You came here to win this for me?”
“I did.” And he laughed, realizing how crazy this must all sound to her. “I thought if I could win . . . It’s a long story—and it doesn’t matter. Not anymore. Octavia, this is it. Don’t you see? We can run. We can get out of here together—now—and start over.”
She was shaking her head.
“Listen,” he said. “We’ll bundle up, pack a bunch of food and stuff, and walk out the train tracks. It’ll be hard, but we’ll make it. I promise.”
Her mouth opened slightly, and her eyes looked very sad. “Oh,” she said, and lifted her hand halfway to him—then let it drop. “Oh, Carl . . . No, I can’t do that. Not now. I can’t.”
“Can’t?” He pictured handsome Romeo with his black hair and white smile. “Or won’t?”
“Later, Carl. I promise. We’ll get out of here together, but I can’t run now. I’m into something here. Something huge. If I left now—” A little tremor went through her, and she gritted her teeth, as if stopping herself from saying more required physical rather than psychological effort. “You just have to trust me.”
And in that moment, he realized he didn’t. It was strange, not trusting her. “You’ve been asking a lot of questions about me, but I have to say . . . you don’t seem like the girl I knew back on Phoenix Island.”
“I’m not,” she said, and her eyes looked sadder than ever. “I’m not that girl anymore.”
He turned and walked away, down the ramp and onto the midnight beach with its torchlight and its black sand still furrowed in the footprints of funeral goers, striding away from the girl who was no longer the girl for whom he’d suffered these long months.
“I know about the chip,” she said behind him.
It stopped him. He turned.
“What?”
“I know about the chip,” she repeated. “And I know people who can help you.”
“Wait . . . how do you—”
They both turned as the elevator doors opened.
“Well, well, well,” Tex said, strutting onto the beach with a huge smile on his face. “My roomie the Blue Falcon.”
No, Carl thought. Why? Why now? And why Tex, of all people?
Octavia stepped away and stood there, smiling and batting her lashes, looking from the ground to Carl and then to Tex. “Debo dejar.”
“What are you doing here?” Carl said.
“You didn’t come back, I figured maybe you got jumped. Came down to the boards, heard somebody shouting down here,” Tex said, and grinned. “You sneaky devil. Why didn’t you tell me about this little mamacita?”
“We just met,” Carl said, and faked a smile that he hoped look better than it felt.
Octavia spoke again, this time using English with an
Oscar-worthy accent. “My name is Tres.” She laughed a
little and shook her head—the picture of good-natured self-
deprecation—and held up three fingers. “Three. My name is Three. I go now.”
“Hey, baby, don’t run off,” Tex said, and gyrated his hips. “How about a little fiesta?”
Octavia turned to Carl, smiling. “Was nice to meet you,” she said, and hugged him.
Carl was still stunned by what Octavia had said about the chip. How did she know? What did she mean, people who could help him? He leaned into the embrace, and feeling her in his arms, he was suddenly and sharply aware that, after having spent months apart, they were separating again. Des
peration rose in him. He wanted to ask when he would see her again, but Tex stood close by, leering at them. “It was nice meeting you, too,” he said, and gave her a squeeze. “I hope we talk again soon.”
Her lips brushed his ear and whispered, “You aren’t the only one they chipped that night in the Chop Shop.”
SIXTEEN
THE NEXT MORNING, Team Phoenix Force crowded around the window in Carl’s room, peering out at the giant television screen, which showed not only the matchups but the tournament brackets. Agbeko had drawn a bye against an opponent too badly injured to compete—an absolute jackpot, considering the Phoenix Forcer’s badly lacerated face—and their luck hadn’t stopped there. Tex, whom Carl had assumed would be slaughtered in the first round, now looked like he had a shot at actually making the semifinals. His opponent, Fighter 9, was the Japanese striker who’d barely won the brutal three-hour bout, left on a stretcher, and was apparently going to fight again.
Carl had drawn Fighter 46 from Zurkistan. Good, he thought, looking forward to showing Baca a thing or two. He was in a foul mood. He’d tried to dim down into meditative sleep, but he couldn’t stop thinking about Octavia, their awkward reunion, and all the questions it had raised. What was she doing here? How had she known about his operation? And what did she mean, he wasn’t the only one who’d been chipped?
Whatever she meant, she was wrong. Stark had suspended all implantations to study and learn from the first successful recipient—Carl—before continuing.
Now, tired and frustrated and angry at himself for not having studied the televised fights, he just wanted to get into the octagon, win his fight, and start over. Tonight, he would focus his mind, study the fights, and prep for the rest of the tournament.
And yet even as his team stood there, talking matchups, his eyes scanned the arena. No sign of her . . .
“I wish that I was fighting,” Agbeko said.
“You need your head examined,” Davis said.
“Of course I wish to compete,” Agbeko said, and Carl knew that he meant it. “I fight for the honor of Phoenix Island.”