by R. C. Lewis
Face it, Essie, you’re no killer.
The computer beeped, warning me that I only had a few seconds left to finish calibrating a thermal sensor. I slid the part back behind the grate and waited for the next one to arrive.
“Keep up with that timer, Essie. You won’t get credit if you finish late.”
Killing, no. Maiming, on the other hand…
“Worry about your own blazing work, Dane.”
I made sure the terminal didn’t beep again.
Around midday, the door to the lab slid open and several sets of footsteps entered.
“Dane? Essie?” Liza’s voice called. “A moment, please.”
My timer paused, so I stepped out of my workstation’s cubicle. The Garamite woman stood waiting with two boys, thirteen years old at most.
“The technicians have completed their initial survey,” she said, turning to the boys. One handed a slate to Dane.
“Here are our findings and the cost for repairs,” the boy said. “Minus the merinium you already provided.”
“These are the technicians?” I blurted.
“Essie.”
I ignored the warning in Dane’s voice. “I’m stuck here doing the most mind-numbing work of my life while children are repairing the shuttle?” After a glance at the tally on the slate, I was doubly outraged. “It’ll take twenty days to work it off at this rate! I could do it myself. All I need are a few parts and some help from—”
“Essie!” The danger that time stopped me.
“We’ve seen your so-called repairs,” the boy said. “Not very elegant.”
Hitting a kid wasn’t my style, but his sneer made it tempting. I’d done what I could with what I had.
“I’m sure it’s different on Thanda,” Liza said kindly. “But education here relies on students being given real tasks. With Tobias as their instructor, they’re more than capable of making the repairs.”
At that price, I certainly hoped so, but I kept my mouth shut.
“We accept the terms,” Dane said.
Liza made a note in the slate, and the three of them left. I turned to go back to my workstation, but Dane grabbed my arm.
“Do not mention the drones. I signaled them to stay where the technicians won’t look, but if anyone finds them…Well, let’s just say that when Garamites want something, they make it difficult to say no, and trying makes them a lot less friendly.”
“Why would they care about my Thandan junk-tech?”
His gaze riveted my feet to the floor. “Those drones aren’t ‘junk-tech,’ and you know it. Keep quiet about them.”
I yanked out of his grasp and went back to work without a word. My head, however, was a riot of nonstop noise.
Twenty days. That was plenty of time for them to find Dimwit and Cusser. Plenty of time for Dane to form plans of his own to keep me from escaping. Plenty of time for the Garamites to find out who I was, with or without Dane telling them.
Worst of all, twenty days in that lab, performing stitch after lifeless stitch, wasting away.
Like you were wasting away on Thanda.
I shook my head, dislodging the sudden thought. Thanda was safe, hidden, out of reach.
Do what needs doing, Essie.
I’d do what needed doing, all right. There had to be a more efficient way of earning a little extra on this planet. I just had to find it.
We got more visitors in the lab the next day, but the footsteps passed my workstation, stopping at Dane’s. I kept my eyes on the fuses I was replacing, my ears on the voices floating over the divider.
“How’s your work coming along?” Brand asked.
“Slowly,” Dane said. “But we’ll get it done.”
“Good.” He lowered his voice, but not so much that I couldn’t hear. “We haven’t had a chance to talk. Still no word on your father?”
“No, nothing.”
A sigh. “Shame. Eight standard years is a long time, especially if the tales of Matthias’s prisons are true.”
I dropped my micro-spanner, and both attempts to pick it up failed. My fingers felt numb.
Dane’s father…The arrested Exiles who’d been living legally in the embassy when I’d disappeared…
That hadn’t been part of the equation.
I shivered and willed myself not to throw up, focusing intently on the replacement fuses instead.
Dane mumbled something I couldn’t hear. Then a voice came from directly behind me, drowning out Brand’s response.
“And how is our clever little Thandan doing today?”
I glanced over my shoulder enough to confirm it was the man I hadn’t liked from the beginning, the one with the superior smirk frozen on his face. “Well enough,” I told him. “Better if you leave me to my work.”
“If this is too advanced, perhaps we can find something more basic for you.”
I bristled but resisted the urge to turn. “This’ll do fine, thanks.”
He started to say something else, but Brand interrupted. “Leave her alone, Tobias. Let’s go.” So the smirking man was Tobias, instructor to the technician brats. Figured.
The footsteps retreated, each beat echoing in my head. Dane’s father was one of the prisoners. It changed things, broke my defenses, and set my mother’s voice screaming in my ears.
Windsong needs you.
I needed to get off of Garam and back to Thanda, fast.
There had to be a way, and I redoubled my efforts to find something useful on the network. Every planet had routes to speedy wealth—one of the few consistencies in the system. Those routes were always risky, but so was sticking around a day longer than I had to.
I found plenty of games of chance that seemed popular, but I didn’t know enough about them to work the odds in a gamble. The same went for some skill-based competitions I came across. Maybe I could succeed at one, but I didn’t have time to learn the rules and get that good.
I needed something quick, something I could pull off.
Something obvious.
By the time Brand and Tobias returned to escort us to our room, I’d figured the answer. One other thing was common to all the planets: everyone loved watching two people try to beat each other senseless.
“What would it take to set me up for a fight?”
Dane whipped around to stare at me. “A what?”
“I’m not talking to you,” I retorted.
Brand stepped in. “I hardly think that’s the kind of thing—”
“I have a winning record in the Thandan fight circuit. Go on and check their networks, you’ll see. Fight winnings will pay off the repairs a lot faster than patching broken components.”
“Then I’ll do the fighting,” Dane said.
“My idea, my fight.” Besides, getting the winnings in my name would make escaping that much easier.
Even with Dane arguing, Tobias didn’t take his eyes off me. He was looking at me like the men on Thanda did when they were certain a risky bet would pay off big. I wondered how he’d feel if I took him out for a warm-up spur right then.
“With all due respect, Dane, watching a trained Candaran fight won’t bring in the credits she will. A girl who bested Thanda’s mining brutes will be an incredible draw.”
“She’s never used VT.”
“You keep telling us how smart she is. I’m sure she’ll catch on.”
Dane opened his mouth to argue more, but I cut him off. I’d seen VT mentioned on the network, but no definition. “What’s VT?”
“Virtual-tech,” Tobias explained. “Fighters engage through our computer network, the audience watches, and no one has to leave their colony.”
It didn’t sound any worse than the cage fights I was used to. Possibly better.
That didn’t explain why Dane looked so unhappy about it.
Brand and Tobias took us by a VT facility to let me try out the technology. It was complicated, involving neural transmitters and kinetic sensors, redirecting the signals from my brain to the computer. I
couldn’t begin to guess how it all worked. They got me hooked up and ran a demonstration.
It felt real.
The rational part of my brain knew I was in a small room full of equipment, unmoving in a reclined chair, but every other part was convinced I was walking along a cliff overlooking an ocean. Salt wafted on the breeze tickling my skin, and the sun made me squint just a little. As I explored, I stubbed my toe on a large rock. That felt real, too.
It was amazing. My brain responded to the signals the computer sent, and the simulation responded to my brain’s own signals. I could fight like this.
Tobias turned off the simulation and disconnected the equipment. “So, are you in?”
I answered before Dane could. “Definitely.”
“All right, we’ll arrange a fight for sometime tomorrow and see how many credits you rack up. If you’re as good as you say, I might consider sponsoring you into the professional circuit. There are a lot more credits to be won that way.”
And be your pet fighting Thandan? Not likely.
I kept my mouth shut as I followed the others out. My toe still hurt. Odd.
Maybe that had to do with why Dane didn’t like it.
His bad mood lingered as we returned to our room. I waited until we were alone before saying anything.
“What’s your problem? You want to use me to get your people back. Why not use me to get on with it faster?”
“It’s different.”
“Using is using, from where I stand.”
“I didn’t like you fighting Moray, either, remember?”
“Aye, but that was different. We were friends then.”
Dane flinched. Once I said it, I realized it was true. He’d felt as much like a friend as any I’d ever had, up until he knocked me out. My anger morphed to a wrenching pang.
You should’ve known better than to trust him, Essie.
His face hardened as he stuck to his original track. “Why are you doing it? You’re the one who acts like you don’t want to go home.”
I couldn’t tell him I had every intention of using my winnings to leave Garam without him and head in the opposite direction of Windsong. To my real home, the one he’d stolen me from. There were plenty of reasons to be in a hurry, though.
“You’ve seen how Tobias looks at me. And you said yourself that when Garamites want something, they make it hard to say no.”
“I would not let that happen!”
All I’d meant was how Tobias viewed me as a commodity, something that could bring more credits his way. Dane was talking about something else…something more personal. His dark eyes flickered, punctuating his sincerity. A twisted knot formed somewhere behind my ribs.
I turned away. “Well, much as I don’t want to go to Windsong, I don’t want to stay here, either. I can find new ways to botch your plans once we’re off this fireball.” I curled up in my blanket, intending to think through possible plans, but the urge to speak up refused to fade. I needed confirmation before I could even think about what I’d do after the fight. “What Brand said…Your father is one of the prisoners you want to trade me for, isn’t he?”
“Good night, Essie.”
That was a yes.
I turned away from him, but I felt off, and it wasn’t just the lingering twinge in my toe. The knot in my chest wouldn’t loosen. I was annoyed with Dane and still wouldn’t mind breaking his nose along with a few other things before I left, but the fire of rage I held toward him went so weak I could barely find it.
Kidnapping me to trade for political prisoners made him a despicable smear of buzzard dung. Trading a girl he’d just met for the father he’d lost eight years ago…that made him something else.
As fight-time drew nearer, Dane couldn’t shut it with the advice.
“Remember what I said before. Don’t let your body show what you’re going to do until you do it. Each action lives in its own moment.”
“Aye, I heard you.”
Liza finished connecting me to the VT unit. “Here’s the current data on the wagers,” she said, pointing to a monitor. “And your percentages for either a win or loss, depending on the length of the fight.”
I took in the data. If I won, I’d be set. Enough to get to the spaceport, maybe even enough to get passage to Thanda. I could work out the other logistics. If I lost, it would take a few more fights to earn enough, depending on how long I lasted each time.
Or I could pay off the repairs and slip away. In either case, I’d be gone.
Tobias moved as though to clap a hand on my shoulder, but my glare stopped him. “Make it a good one, Essie.”
“Always do. Let’s get it going.”
The tech initiated, redirecting my brain’s physical and sensory signals away from my body and into the virtual world. Nothing as serene as the cliff-lined shore greeted me this time.
I stood on the floor of a large arena, the stands filling quickly. So quickly, I had to blink twice to assure myself I wasn’t imagining it. People weren’t walking in and taking their seats; they just popped into existence, already in their places.
I stood in one corner of a large red square. Clearly a fighting ring, though with no cage surrounding it like I was used to. Not even a rope or railing to reinforce its boundary. My opponent appeared in the far corner.
I’d never fought a woman before. This would be different.
I ignored the noise of the gathering crowd to get the measure of her. Tall, nearly Dane’s height. The kind of muscular build that was achieved for its own sake, not from lugging heavy equipment around a merinium mine.
She had strength, weight, and reach on me. And from the cool look in her eyes, I knew it wasn’t her first fight.
A voice came from everywhere and nowhere. “Wagers are now locked in. Fight to commence in three…two…one…begin.”
I never got the lady’s name or anything, not that I cared. Especially when she ran straight at me.
Instinct took over. I dodged, landing a kidney punch as I did. All it elicited was a grunt.
She twisted, grabbing me—I didn’t move fast enough to escape her hold—and threw me across the ring.
I’d thought there was no cage. I was wrong. Thousands of tiny hooks jerked my muscles from the inside out.
A shock-field lining the ring. Charming.
The woman came at me again while I was still down, swinging her leg back for a kick. Dim move, and one I anticipated. I pivoted and brought my own leg up, thrusting my heel into the kneecap of her anchor leg. She went down, giving me enough time to roll to my feet and move away from the ring’s perimeter. I did not want another dose of that shock-field.
My opponent was warier when she got up. She circled me, calculating her next move…smiling.
I hated it when they smiled.
Three attempts to knock it from her face failed, and I took three slamming blows to the gut in return.
She swung at my head, and I moved my left forearm to block. My arm didn’t slow hers down at all. Her fist crashed through my defense and collided with the side of my head.
From there, the fight came unhinged.
I staggered away but kept to my feet, weathering a small shock from the cage. She stayed right with me. Another swing, and another. My blocks did nothing—I felt them more than she did. A bone in my left forearm snapped, and I cried out.
It’s not real it’s not real it’s not real.
It felt real enough.
I let myself get angry, let the rage fly. It bought me a little space and a few bruises for her, but she kept coming.
I’d lost fights before, plenty of them. Most times, I knew it would happen long before it was decided. This was no different, and I always shifted to the same strategy.
Hang in as long as you can, Essie. And hope you don’t get yourself killed.
FOUR ROUNDS. Somehow I pushed through four rounds before my body and brain both refused to cooperate any longer, and I passed out.
Passing out while hooked up to the V
T unit was not a pleasant experience.
As soon as the fighting ring faded, a jolt ripped through me, waking me in the real world. My body still wanted the oblivion of unconsciousness and rebelled. I didn’t have a single injury, but the lower functions of my mind wouldn’t accept it, convinced I was a bleeding pile of broken bones. My eyes blurred as I shook, sending even more phantom pain shooting through my body. I wanted to throw up, but my brain couldn’t get the signals worked out right.
“What’s wrong with her?” Dane’s voice.
“She pushed too long.” Liza. “The beating she took, she should have blacked out much sooner. She overloaded on neural stimuli.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means her brain is very confused. She’ll be fine once she sleeps it off.”
“Knock her out, then.”
“We can’t interfere with her neurochemistry further. That’ll make it worse. Let’s get her back to your room.”
Hands on me, touching me, but I was in too much agony to stop them. Then I was moving, but my feet didn’t touch the ground. Someone might have been carrying me. Too hard to tell.
A standard year must have passed before I stopped moving. Something soft cradled me. Probably a bed.
“You’re too blazing stubborn, Essie.”
I remembered how to make my mouth form words. “Another fight or two should do it.”
“No. You’re not doing that again.”
I had to. I had to get away. Before I could rig an argument, my brain got what it wanted, and I passed out for real.
I spent a full day in and out of consciousness. Sometimes I saw Dane, and sometimes I saw my mother, so I figured it was better to assume everything was a dream.
When I awoke the following morning, the pain had faded, and my surroundings felt real. I pushed myself to sit up—still a right mess of aching—and spotted Dane occupying my usual corner of the floor. He was awake, staring at the ceiling.