by Steve Perry
He didn’t have long to set himself; Weems charged in, full-bore straight on, determined to finish him with a hard attack and lots of momentum.
Mourn did the v-step he had practiced as part of the pattern, angling out but toward Weems. If he had backed up or gone in, Weems would have run over him.
Weems tried to adjust, but he was moving too fast—
Mourn cut, right high, left low, right high—
Weems should have dropped the cane and blocked, using both hands, but he didn’t. He held onto the weapon that had brought him so far and used that, swinging it one-handed.
He was very good and he was fast. He blocked the first cut, deflected the second—
—but he missed the third.
The short and curved steel snagged Weems’s right eye, buried itself in the socket, and gave Mourn a handle. Weems’s momentum kept his body going forward, but his head stopped. Mourn twisted and finished his step in, did a foot drag and, using the handle in Weems’s head as an opposite lever, slammed him down onto his back. Mourn dropped, and smashed the back spine of the second blade into Weems’s forehead, just above the knife jammed into the man’s eye.
Then he let go of the one stuck into Weems and slashed the tendons of the man’s wrist with the other knife. When Weems’s hand opened, Mourn grabbed the cane and jerked it free. Before Weems could move, Mourn used the cane, twice to the head, then to one knee. Bone cracked and broke with every strike.
Z. B. Weems might survive, but he wasn’t going to be walking away from this.
The best fighter in the Musashi Flex had just lost.
However arcane the scoring system was, when you beat Primero, you became Primero. There was nowhere higher to go.
And now, Mourn knew for sure that he had come up with one hell of a martial art. And that was more important even than winning. He had created something of real value.
He reached for the com he carried, to call the medicos for Weems. If they showed up in the next fifteen or twenty minutes, Weems had a good shot at surviving.
Oh, yeah, and the tag. He wanted to collect that. Maybe it wasn’t as important as it had been once, but if you went to meet the best and you won? Might as well take the win.
After he took the tag from Weems’s boot, he hurried away.
He didn’t want to keep Cayne waiting.
34
“He beat Weems?” Shaw couldn’t quite wrap his mind around that.
“Yes, sir,” Cervo said. “Weems is in a docbox at the local MCU being pumped full of chem, cut up some. Medico wasn’t talking past that, but he was in the Healy overnight. Got to figure it was bad.”
“He beat Weems,” Shaw said again. Who the fuck was this guy?
Shaw said, “Where am I?”
“Ninth.”
“Find him. Do it fast.”
“Sir.”
Cervo left, and Shaw paced, thinking. Well, it wasn’t in the script he’d constructed, he hadn’t thought anybody could beat Weems, but it didn’t really matter who it was, did it? Whoever held the title was the guy to beat, that was the important thing.
Azul came in. “Something?”
“Mourn just beat Weems.”
She nodded. “So you go up against Mourn.”
“As soon as Cervo can find him.” He paused. “What about your situation?”
“I did some checking. My control, Pachel, said he didn’t know what Randall wanted me to do for him. Far as I can tell, that’s true. I was supplied with a background, clothes, and supplies, but I never told anybody what they were for. A bright op might be able to make the connection—if they know what kind of art you like, but otherwise, I don’t think so. They’ll start looking for me here and in Chim City. They don’t find me, they’ll spread out on Tatsu, and the rest of the Haradali System. But it’s a big galaxy, and I won’t look like I did, plus my scans won’t match what they have in their records. Even if they know I rascaled the files? They won’t have the right data.”
“I’ve been thinking about moving my corporate headquarters,” he said. “The weather in Chim City’s been lousy. In fact, I don’t much like the weather anywhere in Haradali, come to that.”
She smiled. “You’d do that?”
“Why not? I can. I can run things from anywhere I want.”
“And where is that?”
“Anywhere you are,” he said.
They both smiled.
“Soon as I take care of this one little thing,” he said.
She frowned.
“What?”
“This Mourn guy worries me.”
“You’ve seen me move. Nobody can match me.”
“But he has something—something he didn’t used to have. To jump from the Teens and high digits into the top spot after having lived there for so long? That’s not how the game works, is it?”
“It doesn’t matter what he has. It won’t be enough. My juju will beat his.”
She didn’t say anything, but he could feel her doubt.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “Start thinking about places you’d like to live.”
“Boss?”
Shaw looked up.
“I got him.”
“That fast?”
“He’s in the com directory.”
Shaw smiled. “Let’s make a call, shall we?”
“So, you’re the man who knocked off Weems. I heard it was pretty bad. He die?”
They were at a public park in a quiet section of the city. The grass was a deep green, bordered by a ring of evergreen trees, the sun shining. A great day to achieve your dream.
“No. Got a new eye and some cosmetic work, some bones glued, but he’ll survive.”
Shaw shrugged. Weems didn’t matter anymore, he was history.
“What’s your trick, M. Mourn? I tried to get footage of you, but it wasn’t to be had.”
“No trick,” Mourn said. “I put some things together is all.”
“New way of moving?”
“I don’t think so. Different attitude. I didn’t create it, I just discovered it. It was always there.”
Shaw moved a little closer, but still outside Mourn’s immediate attack range. Mourn had gone for bare. With Shaw’s speed, he could go in from three or four steps away faster than Mourn could stop him. “It won’t be enough.”
“You could be right.” He circled to his left, angled at about forty-five degrees toward Shaw. “I’ve seen your record. Impressive.”
“I’m a few seconds from what I’ve wanted my whole life.”
Mourn smiled.
“Something funny about that?”
“No. Until day before yesterday, I could have said the very same thing myself.”
“Can’t say you sound all that happy about it. Not all you hoped it would be?”
“Not really. You might find out in a minute.”
“Oh, I will, you can bank on it.”
Shaw felt the Reflex dancing him, wanting to sprint, to move! He had it all, now. That conversation with Azul rolled around in his head. She was something, the partner he had never even known he had wanted. Smart, beautiful, brave—a woman who would risk her life to protect him, who had done so. Had met his enemy and taken him out. He had her. And in a few seconds, he would reach the top of his personal mountain.
Life could not get any better than this. It just couldn’t.
Mourn stepped back and came up from his crouch. “How important is this to you? Being Primero?”
“You have to ask? I couldn’t begin to tell you.”
“You can have it.”
“What?”
“We can go call the showrunners, and I’ll give you the win. I’m going to retire anyhow.”
“No!”
“No? But I thought you wanted this more than anything?”
“I want to earn it!”
Mourn shook his head. “Fairly? But you can’t, can you?”
Shaw glared at him. “What are you talking about? The runners have called all my ma
tches fair.”
“But they weren’t, were they? I talked to a couple of the guys you beat. I know what your trick is. You’ve kicked your speed up. Given your background, I’d guess it was chemically augmented, some kind of metabolic enhancer, with something the runners haven’t seen before, so they haven’t banned it yet. Probably you can beat me anyhow, so why bother?”
“Why would you give up what you worked your whole life to get?”
Mourn laughed. “Because it doesn’t really matter. Along the way, other things got to be more important. I got where I wanted to go. I thought it was the top of the galaxy. It’s not even the summit of a foothill. I have seen the view. It’s not so hot. I don’t need to stay here. It’s yours, and welcome to it.”
“No. I don’t want you to give it to me. I want to take it for myself.”
“What if you can’t? What if you can’t beat me? You want to risk it? Word gets around, somebody will pass it along to the showrunners pretty soon. Somebody will complain, and when enough of them do, you’ll get called in for a chem scan. They might not know what it is, but they’ll see something, and they’ll forbid it. You don’t get where you want to go soon, you won’t get there. I am your last chance. You aren’t good enough without the crutch.”
“But I can beat you now!” Shaw said. He felt a red rage, joined to the Reflex. And a realization that Mourn was probably right. Time was running out. This might indeed be his last chance.
“Come on, then. Show me what you got, rich man. Cheater.”
The insult stung. The rage blew through his controls. Shaw leaped—
Mourn had never seen a man move as fast as Shaw did. If he’d been inside a step and a half, Mourn wouldn’t have gotten his hands up in time. As it was, he barely did. If his position hadn’t covered his lines, he wouldn’t have had time to block. Shaw essentially ran into Mourn’s hands, literally hitting his body against Mourn’s fists. The speed was enough to make it a pretty good impact without Mourn doing any extension at all.
It wasn’t as if the man was a blur—Mourn could see his motions—but his own moves weren’t going to be able to keep up. If Shaw moved first in close, Mourn’s reactions were going to be too slow.
Shaw bounced back, cursing, still moving at that inhuman speed.
Mourn backed a couple quick steps away, to give himself more time to react. If ever there was going to be a test of position, this was it. He had to read Shaw’s attack the instant it was launched, then ignore it, hurrying to get himself set, or he’d never make it. He had to be enough ahead of Shaw to make up for the man’s incredible quickness, and he had to have distance to do it. Most of what he had been discovering went in or angled to one side. Here, if he didn’t give himself room—
Shaw barreled in, changed levels, and Mourn reacted, reaching for the block—bad idea—!
Shaw slapped Mourn on the left side of his head, a little bit above the temple, so the strike rocked him, but didn’t gray him out—
Shaw punched again with his other hand, and all Mourn had time to do was tense the muscles of his belly for the impact—
If Shaw stayed there and kept pounding away, Mourn would have been in deep shit—he turned, managed to get a low elbow in the way, but the counterattack with the other elbow to the high line was a full beat behind—
Shaw laughed and leaped away.
That was a tactical error. He wanted to damage Mourn, back off and look to see, then come in again, striking like a shark or a dire-wolf, rather than staying and clinching. If Mourn could catch him, grapple him still for long enough, he could hit back—
Shaw bore in again, and since he was depending on his velocity, he left an opening, the solar plexus. He wasn’t worried, probably was sure he could cover it in time.
Mourn started his punch when Shaw was still a meter and a half away, at the same time, covering his face for the high punch that Shaw’s lowered shoulder promised was coming—
Mourn’s block was good, it deflected Shaw’s attack so it missed. His punch was better—it hit Shaw solidly, aided by the terrific speed of the man’s attack—
Shaw reeled away, gasping for air.
Mourn bore in, moving as fast as he could—
Too slow, he could see, but he threw one of the attack sambuts, high to the face, then low with the same hand changing the line halfway through, going for the belly, and the other elbow horizontally for Shaw’s head—
Shaw blocked all three attacks, but they kept him off-balance enough so that he couldn’t generate a counter—
Shaw broke away, retreated to gain himself room—
He’s too fast to trade techniques with.
How do you beat a man who can fly rings around you? You can’t move quickly enough to swat a hummingbird . . .
Shaw came in, and this time, Mourn knew he wasn’t going to throw a couple of punches and back off, he would stay and use his superior swiftness to try and end it—
How do you swat a hummingbird? You don’t—you have to . . .
Shaw fired off a kick and a punch, and Mourn knew what he had to do—
He didn’t try to block either attack. He opened his arms wide, as if to offer himself up for the slaughter—
The kick caught him on the thigh, it hurt and it would slow him, but that didn’t matter now—
The punch smashed into his left cheek—the bone cracked and his vision flashed red and gray, but Shaw was there—
Mourn wrapped his arms around Shaw, pulling him in tight.
It didn’t matter how fast he was, if he couldn’t move—!
Shaw’s instinctive reaction was to try and push away, but Mourn wasn’t having any of that. He snapped his head forward, twisted his neck slightly so that the head butt was where his horn would be if he’d had any, and slammed Shaw’s nose—
Shaw’s nose broke, and the impact stunned him. He struggled to escape—
Mourn butted him again, slightly higher and to the left, and felt the impact jar him as he smacked into the orbit of Shaw’s right eye—
Shaw went slack, dazed even more—
Mourn slid his left foot forward a hair, hooked his instep around Shaw’s right ankle, and butted him again, forehead to forehead. His vision swam with Brownian motes—the impact was nearly enough to knock himself out, but not quite—he had the momentum and the intent, he knew it was coming—
Shaw almost collapsed. Mourn let his bear hug go, threw a short elbow to Shaw’s upper chest, and pulled inward and upward with his left foot, sweeping Shaw’s leg clear of the ground, leaving him no support on that side—
Shaw fell, hard, and Mourn dropped with him, bringing the point of his elbow straight down and just below the xiphoid process. The nerve plexus there was not very well protected, and the impact knocked Shaw’s breath from him—
Mourn twisted, and used his left elbow, a strike to Shaw’s right temple, to finish it. Shaw went limp, out cold.
When he managed to slow his own breathing, Mourn got back to his feet. He had won the title he’d wanted. He had defended it against a man who should have beaten him. He had added a ninety-seventh step to the art he’d discovered.
Not a bad couple of days, when you thought about it.
“If he’s dead, so are you,” a woman said.
Mourn turned and saw a beautiful brunette standing there. She had a spring gun in her hand, pointed at him.
“He’s not dead, just unconscious,” he said. “He’ll have a headache, probably a concussion when he wakes up.”
“Back away.”
Mourn did so.
The woman kept him covered, the pistol rock-steady as she moved toward Shaw.
“Put it down, sister, or you’ll be taking a nap, too.”
Mourn looked to his left. Cayne stood there, her hand wand aimed at the woman who was bending over Shaw.
The woman looked. She tossed the spring gun to the side and reached down to touch Shaw’s face. Shaw groaned. The woman smiled.
Cayne walked closer, stiff
, her weapon still pointed at the woman.
“I thought you weren’t coming to any more of these.”
“Yeah, well, I changed my mind.”
“Why?”
“Because if you died, the man who did it wasn’t going to be walking away.”
He smiled.
“What now?”
“Now? I’m going to put in a call to the runners. I’m retiring.”
“You serious?”
“Yes, fem, I am serious. As serious as an old guy like me gets.”
Her face lit with a big grin.
“Ellis?” the woman cradling Shaw’s head with one hand said.
“What happened?” Shaw said, his voice just above a whisper. He turned his head to the side and vomited.
Now it was the woman’s face that shone with a smile, even as she wiped puke from his lips with her bare fingers. Mourn nodded to himself. Cayne had come to avenge him, if necessary. The woman with Shaw must have had the same idea.
He hoped Shaw was worthy of that kind of care.
He hoped he was, too.
“We’re done here,” he said to Cayne. “Let’s go.”
35
Cayne came into the cottage. Mourn had heard her return once she’d cleared the courtyard’s gate and noticed that her steps weren’t quite even. He saw why she was off-balance as she stepped into view:
She was carrying a guitar case.
“Happy birthday, Mourn.”
He blinked. “How did you know that?”
“I’m a trained journalist, remember?”
She put the case on the table. It was, like his previous one, spun-carbon fiber—light, but very strong. He unsnapped the six latches that held it shut.
Inside was a cedar-topped classical, with a Gilbert-style bridge and tuners, the fretboard made of what looked like rosewood instead of ebony. Mourn carefully removed the instrument from the case.