Grand Junction

by Maurice G. Dantec

  The man emits an unintelligible cry mingled with a gasp of surprise. His latex-gloved hands, each holding a long, sharpened spike gleaming with some sort of poison, flap frenetically in all directions.

  Campbell finishes him off with a violent slash right in the face. A gout of blood accompanies the man’s final slump onto Territory soil, as his head detaches halfway from his body. The false night is red. Ultrared.

  They have broken the weakest link in a single blow. They have broken it so rapidly that the other two cannot even react.

  For a few seconds, at least.

  The rifles-turned-hand-weapons quickly end up on the ground. They are moving to the more sophisticated phase of the first war—the battle of blades. It is the last kind of progress. The very last one.

  It is at this moment of disconnection that, probably, destiny finds the energy necessary for actualization. The distribution of forces, the redivision of lines of frontal collision, the crystallization of points of no return.

  Chemistry.

  The chemistry of blood, metal, and earth.

  The particular chemistry of men who are going to kill one another.

  We always seek to acquire what we are missing, for the good or the bad. We choose each other; we always choose each other in twos, mutually, because we know we will be together until death. We choose each other in the scarlet brotherhood of spilled blood, of blood that will be spilled, of all the blood that has ever been spilled. We choose each other by mutual agreement—as mutual as it is perfectly tacit.

  We choose each other because we know that one of us is going to kill the other one.

  The couples form, as if on a dance floor; the duos are created, the terminal engagements, the pure love of steel in blinding light.

  Yuri quickly finds himself facing off against Belfond, who has just extracted a long, heavy scythe-bladed machete from a holster on his back. Campbell is confronting the gladiatrix from the strip, who is armed with a fireman’s axe. Once more two events happen simultaneously, in parallel, but with their own respective rules. Two perspectives of war, of the Law, of infinity.

  Two beginnings, two unfoldings, two endings. Two lives.

  Two lives compressed into a few minutes.

  Two lives that crystallize, here, now, everything they have ever been.

  Within the Circle of Steel, the very last citadel to have fought and the very last that will fall, at the center of the Ridge, the Ark is now nothing but continuous, varying ultraviolet light interspersed with silvery flashes. It has turned from the white of a star into a cobalt blue full moon that will, now, illuminate the final encounter between human predators.

  This final encounter that resembles so closely the very first one.

  Yuri McCoy. Johnson Belfond.

  Chrysler Campbell. Wanda Walker.

  A machete, a Gurkha sword, an axe, a diving knife.

  It is a strange thing; a battle that lasts just a few minutes can only be described as if it lasted for hours. Because in a battle, each second is directly connected to death. Each second is directly connected to infinity. Each second spans a lifetime, because it could be the last.

  Epic metaphor is the only solution, the ellipsis encircling the metaphysics of War, the bloody poetry of the god Mars.

  The Dance of Sabers. The Song of Blades. The Music of Knives.

  How to juxtapose, one more time, two coevolving realities? How to truly place them in parallel? What central point of view to adopt?

  The Dance of Sabers. The Song of Blades. The Music of Knives.

  If there is anyone who can follow the ballet along both of its parallel lines, it is the large purple crow flying over the Ridge and the former cosmodrome. The crow sees; it can discriminate; it can adopt several successive points of view. It can see the secret diagrams at work. It can guess who will live and who will die.

  The machete strikes the Gurkha sword with a dry, sharp noise like a detonation. Under the violence of the blow, Yuri’s weapon drops. Belfond is a determined brute. He is also a good combatant. He knows how to wield his machete. Yuri is forced into a defensive position, Belfond constantly on the offensive, a wide grin on his face.

  Territory techniques, thinks Yuri during one of the rare pauses between attacks. Campbell’s techniques. Mixed martial arts techniques.

  They are the one solution—the only solution—offered by the Law of Bronze.

  To succeed in the first place, it is not the enemy who must be eliminated, but his weapon.

  Yuri knows now that his Nepalese sword will protect him for quite a while, but in the end it will succumb. Same strength ratio goes for Chrysler, with his submarine combat knife against an axe. So the very last of all wars must be taken back to its initial stage, the most elementary of all.

  They will have to kill the enemy with their bare hands.

  Only the purple crow knows, probably. Only the Territory crow can guess the point where the two lines will diverge absolutely and permanently. It can already see them reconfiguring themselves to their own polarities.

  Even as he parries Belfond’s thrusts, Yuri catches several glimpses of what is going on twenty meters away, where Campbell is battling the gladiatrix from the strip.

  Chrysler evades an attack and takes advantage of the opportunity to strike out, cutting deeply as he does—and Wanda Walker’s forearm is now nothing but a cascade of blood gushing onto her fireman’s axe.

  Yuri recoils to avoid a sharp blow from Belfond. He tries a counterattack in his turn, but comes perilously close to having the enemy’s blade cleave his head in two; only a reflex from the deepest recesses of his training permits him to save his own skin.

  Wanda Walker attacks again, managing this time to slam her axe heavily into Chrysler’s knife, which flies out of his hand like an arrow, but Campbell responds with a pure Thai boxing maneuver, a circular kick that directly strikes the wounded arm of the gladiatrix, who slowly lets her weapon drop. Campbell follows up with a nasty high kick to the temple; the woman, stunned, sways and falls on one knee in front of him, her head slumping forward. It is the perfect position for a vale tudo–type penalty kick—a fast kick in the jaw with a recoil of several meters, as if sending a soccer ball deep into the net.

  The woman falls backward and rolls to one side. It is Campbell’s moment now. He is already on her, crouched over her body, holding her down with his knees. He is unleashing his full fury on her, raining blows on her face at two per second, left-right jabs, as if attacking a punching bag.

  Belfond’s attack is vicious; Yuri does not notice him pick up a handful of dirt and gravel, but suddenly his eyes are full of the blinding mixture. Too late, he remembers one of Campbell’s first lessons: In person-to-person combat, the only thing you should focus on is your opponent. He manages to avoid the next thrust by throwing himself to the ground in a controlled jiujitsu roll.

  The purple crow could help him, of course, but that is not its role. A Territory animal, part of the aerial force of Grand Junction, it is there to observe, to report to the dead what happens in the world of the living, always watching, never even trying to understand.

  * * *

  Yuri is not aware of the full extent to which the Territory has synchronized them, him and Campbell; only the purple crow knows it.

  The gladiatrix’s formidable body mass and bull-like energy allow her to reverse the situation in her favor several times—or, at least, to wriggle out of Campbell’s traps.

  For example, the Kimura key he patiently executes in his crouched position above her body: his right hand seizes her right wrist, keeping her arm bent like a chicken wing, elbow pointed upward, fist downward; then he slides his left arm between her bicep and her forearm, trapped at a right angle, so that his left hand and right fist can, with an ultraquick lateral rotation, flip the enemy joint skyward while her forearm is immovably bent outward. But, screaming in pain, using all her own weight, striking with all her strength, the gladiatrix manages to wrench herself away from him. Pain is a
n indicator of impairment; when he stands, he can see in the girl’s contorted face that he has torn numerous muscles, perhaps dislocated others. Campbell applies rule number one of mixed martial arts: Above all, knock your enemy to the ground. Again and again his heel flies up in a violent kick to the gladiatrix’s face, which rapidly turns purple with bruising. When she does manage to rise, a roundhouse kick sends her staggering. Campbell attacks again, using a front kick to knock her off balance again, but the girl easily outweighs his hundred kilos; the blow to her solar plexus causes her to gasp and scream out in pain, but it does not fell her. She gathers herself again, and her tactic is obvious: make Campbell fall as fast as she can, and then overwhelm him with her sheer body mass. A series of direct blows, and then she pounces on him and his defensive knee thrusts do nothing to prevent her from pummeling him brutally into the ground.

  Belfond and Yuri are caught up in their own Dance of Sabers, Song of Blades, Music of Knives. They circle each other like tigers. Yuri has not been able to mount a single attack against Belfond, but none of Belfond’s assaults has borne fruit, either. Neither of them has even wounded the other. Yuri knows that in this type of combat, the first to be wounded is often the first to die. And the first wound is often enough to do the job.

  And Belfond knows it, too. His attacks become more cautious as Yuri begins to understand and anticipate the main tactics he is using. He may be immortal, but time is not on his side.

  Yuri sees the impressive bulk of the gladiatrix on top of Campbell. She is big enough to dominate him easily with all her weight, lying in a lateral position, out of reach of his feet and knees.

  She is using the battering force of her knees as well as her fists. Systematically, between two series of heavy blows right in his face, she raises her enormous mass above Campbell’s immobilized body, bends her right leg, and slams her knee as hard as she can into his bloodied face, which will surely be crushed in a few more seconds.

  More clashing of metal blades. Belfond is moving faster now; he wants to finish this. But to do that, he needs to take more risks. He manages to shove Yuri up against the grille of a big Chevy truck set into the external wall of the Circle of Steel. His blade flashes in all directions. Yuri fights back, parrying and counterslashing; he doesn’t know exactly how he is doing what he is doing, but it’s working—much better than it should, given the fact that his eyes are full of blood that is red, very red, in the night.

  Tactics against numbers. Technique against Mass. It is thanks to this fundamental Territory principle that Campbell escapes, that he manages to wriggle away from Walker, to slide underneath her body, holding one of her fists firmly down. He throws his two crossed legs around the gladiatrix’s head, trapping her arm against the ground at the same time—and then it is classic, splendid juji-gatame: dragging your adversary backward, pulling to break her neck, using the key component—her head—caught between your own legs.

  Tendons rip, cartilage breaks, muscle fibers tear. A cry of pain rings out.

  Seen from the sky, the situation is not unfolding in Yuri’s favor. True, he has wounded his opponent, but only superficially—nothing more than a bloody laceration running from shoulder to forearm. He has not been able to regain the upper hand. The purple crow gets closer to the scene. No detail escapes it.

  After an exchange of kicks and punches in the standing position, Campbell finds himself once again at a disadvantage and on the ground. This time the gladiatrix falls on him with all her weight, 115 kilograms at least. She is trying to hold him down at a higher point on his body, the thorax, in order to try a guillotine-hold strangling. Campbell knows all the traps. He does nothing to prevent her from getting into the position she wants. He drops his chin and protects his neck with his forearms. A barrage of punches attempts to make him let go, but he holds on. So she uses her elbows, her head, even a rock snatched from the ground nearby. The girl’s arm is ready to crush his throat. Campbell knows that if he is hit full-on by the rock, he will be finished. He knows the moment has come.

  The moment of triangular strangulation. He raises his legs toward the sky, as if for juji-gatame; this time he crosses them around her neck, managing to grab her wrist with one of his hands. Then all he has to do is bend his legs and to tighten, tighten, tighten; this will break the cervical vertebrae, causing asphyxiation by compression of the whole laryngopharyngeal system, and it is extremely painful.

  Yuri has just been wounded in his turn. He managed to avoid the circular movement of the machete aiming for his stomach, but the blade made a large gash in the flesh of his left thigh as it passed. He easily blocks the thrust that follows, but then finds himself forced to recoil, recoil, recoil. Endlessly. But he holds on, parrying, striking the enemy blade with his own. He fights.

  Something tells the purple crow that the battle is nearing its end. It does not know why, because whys don’t interest this Territory bird. What counts for it, and for those who will be hearing what it has to say, is how.

  The lines of destiny are diverging farther and farther, the purple crow knows.

  For the young man named Yuri McCoy, the outcome will be determined by a mistake committed by the man called Belfond, a mistake for which the counterattack can be at once instinctive and completely lethal.

  For Campbell the solution is something else entirely, and it is he who will choose it.

  Back on his feet, he faces the gladiatrix. He knows he will not be able to beat her with a simple combination of kicks and punches, but he also knows he has bruised her. And he knows that on the ground her weight is both an advantage and a handicap. A handicap is just an advantage that meets the Territory, thinks Campbell.

  It is so simple then: a Vovchanchyn punch launched from behind his back, masking the position, the angle of his arm until the last instant; then the fist hits in a direct slice—that is, with a lot of amplitude in it—and slams downward from temple to ear to jaw. She is stunned. Then a series of low kicks to weaken her thighs, which are as thick as tree trunks. Let her come now. There.

  He throws himself forward, legs straight in front of him, launching himself at her neck, clamping her neck between his thigh muscles exactly as he would for a triangular stranglehold. He takes her down to the ground with him, suffering a series of brutal punches to his head but managing to carry his plan through; the idea is to end up in a dominated position underneath the gladiatrix, but voluntarily this time, so that she is perfectly situated to be garroted by a half nelson. This time the key will be turned all the way in the lock. Until her bones break. Until the deadly crack sounds. The important word here is voluntarily. What will be different is that it will be a deadly trap. A typical Territory trap.

  The purple crow knows this. Just like it knows all the rest.

  A deadly trap can be very slow or very fast. There is no in-between.

  Belfond makes a serious mistake. Surely the only one of his whole life. And the last one. A very simple, banal error. In the Territory, the simplest of errors can immediately turn into a fatal mistake.

  Undoubtedly unnerved by Yuri’s agility and resilience, he becomes more unsteady. Just a little more. A little too unsteady. One of his attacks is very poorly executed. Yuri dodges it easily. Again an imbalance. Belfond is easy prey for the powerful high kick that costs him several teeth and sends him crashing to the ground, groggy, as his machete falls away. Then it is all so simple, so direct, so perfect.

  The Law of the Territory.

  If you offer Death an inch, it will take a mile.

  Yuri kneels beside Belfond. He reads in the man’s glassy eyes that the last general in history is ready. Ready or not, the Law of the Territory will be preserved; he will die. The enemy has been beaten.

  “You haven’t got a chance,” Yuri tells him, just before slashing the Gurkha blade across his throat, slicing it cleanly.

  The steel brings forth a gout of blood as it clangs against the rock underneath Belfond’s head.

  There. It is finished. The Seventh Day of
the Construction of the Vessel is ending with this double victory. This double murder that will end the whole history of murders.

  The Territory is no one’s friend, but you can try to befriend it, says a local proverb that Campbell repeats often. You didn’t try hard enough, thinks Yuri.

  Campbell turns his blue-blotched, puffy, bloody face toward Yuri. Hematomas, bumps, multiple lacerations. His face has doubled in size. He disentangles himself with difficulty from the unmoving body of the gladiatrix. The Gurkha sword, red with the blood of the last general in human history, still in his hand, Yuri walks toward him with a wide smile.

  Campbell obviously had a very bad fifteen minutes before coming out on top, during which the situation turned against him not once, but twice. Yuri, on the other hand, was constantly dominated until the flash of genius that allowed him to seize his chance. Controlled coincidence, they call it in the Territory.

  They have survived. They have conquered. They have kept the Territory and its Law safe. They have saved the Vessel.

  Campbell stands up, swaying. He looks blearily at the two corpses, fifteen meters apart.

  “They may be immortal, but the Territory is invincible.”

  The two bodies metamorphose into their numeric essence—semibiological, semispectral forms, reduced to a catalogue of digital organs, mingling bit by bit with the ecology of the Territory. Soon they will be re-cloned.