“I have to think about it.”
“Nope, this is take it or leave it, and I already said you were taking it. And, hey, you can even bring the little guy back. I mean, I already unfired him, but he’ll take it better hearing this from you, you know?”
“What do you think, Sophia?”
She closed her eyes and gave her head a little shake. “Well, we were just lamenting how you thought being idle would be torture. Mr. Traeger, when Wallace wins, what does that do for his prospects next season? Still on the circuit, or do we remain here in Solaris City?”
“Circuit, yes, but headlining like Snorri and Aniki. We do marketing before that, start merchandising, get ancillary revenue up. Barringtons wants to do a limited-edition action figure of you, and that’s great. You’ll just do the big circuit venues, then straight back to big city fights.”
She flashed blue eyes at Walter. “Just see to it you win.”
“Sure,” Walter nodded. “Okay, let me know what I have to do.”
“As always.” Traeger rose and slapped Walter on the shoulder. “You know, just earning my keep. Want to make sure we’re profitable so I get my cut.”
“Thanks.” Walter waited until Traeger had headed toward the door before pounding down half his remaining beer.
Sophia grabbed his hand again. “What was that all about? Not the fighting—the ‘earning my keep’ bit?”
“Ivan, Aniki, Snorri, and I got together and persuaded Traeger to modify contracts. We have a majority interest in Windfall Warriors Unlimited now, so he’s feeling he’s an employee. He doesn’t like it, but he is a hustler. I’m sure he’s got other deals going here, but as long as the money keeps flowing in our direction, I’m happy.”
“Do you trust him?”
“No, but your brother has his assets locked down—at least all the ones we know about. He’ll figure out what Traeger’s game is, and we’ll beat him at it.”
“Good.” She gave him a smile that banished the irritation Traeger’s interloping had caused. “And I’m confident you’ll win this little tournament.”
Walter squeezed her hand, then his eyes tightened. “You’re just glad I’m not going to be unemployed and moping about on the Vulture’s Egg for the next three months.”
“That never even occurred to me.” Sophia winked at him. “Now, don’t let your food get cold.”
“Ambassador Wen Xu-Tian, aren’t you? Of course you are. You don’t mind if I sit, do you?”
The Liao expatriate looked up at the silhouette standing next to his table at a supposedly exclusive social club. “You have me at a disadvantage, sir.”
Traeger slid into the far side of the booth, trapping a barely clad young woman between them. “Probably, but it’s not much of one. I’m Simon Traeger. I own—well, head up—Windfall Warriors Unlimited. You had words with one of my people. Wallace Richards. No, don’t even pretend to deny it. I keep a discreet eye on them, and I know you shared a limo with him.”
Xu-Tian smiled and spread his hands. “Of course I have. Big fan of Wallace’s, naturally.”
“Hey, look, this innocence act might have worked if I hadn’t patented it before your companion here got herself born. Hell, I got underwear older than her. No offense, darling. Love the look. You got a sister? And, Xu-Tian, I know that ‘fan’ doesn’t begin to describe you. I got holo from the limo and after. Can’t make out any sound, but whatever it was you said, it had Wallace the most rattled I’ve ever seen.”
“I believe you have misunderstood what we spoke about.”
Traeger tapped a finger against the table. “No, you’re misunderstanding, see? You think I’m here because you rattled one of my guys, then he goes out and loses a fight. That isn’t it at all, not at all. See, you got under his skin, which makes me think you know something about him that I want to know. This whole amnesia schtick I don’t buy, and I know Spurs is in it with him.”
“Spurs?”
“His little buddy.” Traeger lowered his voice to a whisper. “So, what do you know? What are you shaking them down about? You are shaking them down.”
Xu-Tian pressed his hands together. “You suggest extortion, but the fact is that your friends caused me a spot of difficulty. I wish them to make me whole for that situation.”
“And this loss is something you want to keep out of the courts. A private matter.”
“You understand. Now, if they comply with my wishes, your friends have nothing to worry about from me.”
“Yeah, well, they ain’t no friends of mine.” The man’s expression tightened. “They caused me trouble, too, and I’d like to get even, but privately, so I’m thinking that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
Interesting. “How is it you imagine I could help you, Mr. Traeger?”
“You got something on them, and you’re after money or the kinds of things money can buy. I happen to have certain resources that translate into money, and they could become a lot more money, if I can get Wallace to do what I tell him to do. I tried to get him to cooperate before, but I didn’t have any leverage. I’m thinking whatever it is you know about them would give me that leverage.”
Xu-Tian smiled easily. “Cutting to the chase, you will bet heavily against Wallace when he is favored in a fight, and he’ll take a dive because my knowledge will force him to do so. You’ll pay me off out of your winnings.”
“No. You’ll place bets and win yourself a fortune. More money than you can imagine. And then…” Traeger said, his smile sharpening, “I let the authorities know Wallace threw a fight. Stitch him and his buddy up good. We get rich, they get five to ten making big rocks into little ones. Sound like a deal?”
“I do believe, Mr. Traeger, we can do business together.” Xu-Tian extended his hand toward the larger man. “I look forward to the successful conclusion of your plan.”
Chapter Ten
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
The Club at the Graveyard
Solaris VII (The Game World)
Rahneshire, Lyran Commonwealth
22 December 3001
Walter couldn’t pinpoint the source of his unease, though it had begun the moment the roster for the Christmas Eve fights had gone public. Most people didn’t care one way or another about his inclusion. A small group of fans cheered his selection and vocally supported him whenever holovid producers ventured into the streets for “authentic” reactions. Those fans, who had taken to calling themselves “Mystery Folk,” adopted white headbands emblazoned with an inverted blue question mark. He had no idea who, how, or why the decision for that symbol had been made, but he suspected Traeger had a hand in it.
At least, he had merchandise available with that symbol within six hours of the first time I saw it.
Even those who hated him vehemently didn’t bother Walter too much. He realized that passions for fighters ran high and the rhetoric hot. So far no one had accosted him personally. Common wisdom among MechFighters held that haters weren’t serious until the second time they reloaded while shooting at you.
Most annoying about his unease was that he couldn’t even get a solid sense of what it truly was. He didn’t feel doomed, didn’t feel he was going to die in the cockpit. That was a possibility he couldn’t discount, but he’d felt that sort of dread before, and this wasn’t it.
When it came down to it, the feeling combined impatience and weariness. He wanted plans to move forward, but wasn’t sure he’d have the energy to follow things through. And even as he came to that realization, another joined it: he felt that same way about his next fight, about returning to Maldive, and about facing the future with Sophia.
He’d been telling the truth when he said he had a duty to get the Litzau family back to Maldive and put them in charge. Still, the idea of spending the next twenty years on Solaris, marrying her, and raising a family had appeal. His life choices up to this point
had all been a rejection of that common dream. Facing a difficult future suddenly made the idea of family and stability very tempting.
“Man, if you’re that focused because of our fight two nights from now, I might just have to pull out.”
“Beg pardon?”
The tall, dark-haired man smiled easily enough. “Didn’t mean to intrude, but… I’m…”
“Bloodstone, I know.” Walter offered the man his hand. “Caine took you out after he got me.”
“I was pulling for you, but the fan input… They treated me as roughly as they did you.” Amusement sparked in his blue eyes. “But, you know, his fans voted for us to be given another shot—I guess that deep down, if they like Caine, they like mercs in general.”
“Job security of a sort, I guess.” Walter shook his hand and smiled. “Traeger mentioned you from the beginning as having developed a good star persona—the whole single name thing.”
Bloodstone sidled up to the bar beside Walter. “Not a stage name—I was born with it. It works here, same way mates in my old unit used to call me Stoney. My fans here—both of them—call themselves Bloods.”
“Said with a healthy amount of disdain.” Walter signaled the bartender. “I’m just drinking sparkling water, but I’ll buy you a drink.”
“Fizzy water is good for me. I don’t like drinking for the prior forty-eight.” Bloodstone jerked a thumb back over his shoulder toward the five-meter-tall windows looking into the arena. “You’re liking Snorri and Aniki in this round of the Platinum Crown warm-up matches?”
“They’ve been true friends. Plus, they’re very good.”
“Agreed. I would have thought they’d have warranted a better venue.”
Walter shrugged. The Graveyard had been a staple on the fight scene since the middle of the last century. It had started as the Grand, but it had a bad run of luck early on. Three champions had rather abruptly ended their careers in lethal fights with a group of unknowns. The ownership constructed small memorials where the champions had fallen, then shifted from what had once been elegant and modern styling to gothic structures befitting Halloween and the most grotesque aspects of the Grand Guignol. The decorators created everything to be larger in scale than the ’Mechs. Massive gravestones provided cover, and thick metal cables that served as webbing for giant animatronic spiders could hold a ’Mech back.
“It must have been something ages ago in its heyday.” Walter saluted with his glass. “To ghosts and omens being held at bay.”
“Well said.” Bloodstone sipped his drink. “And as I said before, I didn’t mean to intrude but…” He glanced at the various tables between the bar and the viewport. MechFighters had gathered and were celebrating their inclusion in the High Noon Tournament. “If our contract didn’t require us to be here for the media and sponsors, I’d avoid that gaggle of losers like the plague.”
“Technically speaking, if we’re here, we’re losers.”
“You have a point, but we know fighting differently than they do. For a lot of them, it’s a lark. Doesn’t mean they aren’t good, but we understand it as work.”
Walter nodded. “Still, a chunk of those guys are soldiers.”
“Were soldiers. They are ex-soldiers. You know how bad you have to be for the nation that trained you to let you go to fight here?” Bloodstone half smiled. “If soldiers were all that good, there wouldn’t be any work for mercenaries.”
“Then what does it say about us that we can’t get work as mercenaries?”
“Can’t, or won’t?”
“Point. Those words don’t always mean the same thing.” Walter shrugged. “And I’m not disputing your general argument. If they can’t or won’t focus on the realities of fighting, they’re taking the kinds of chances that don’t bode well for anyone. I’m pretty sure they don’t want to die, and I certainly don’t want to be getting a rep as someone who kills his foes.”
“Amen.” Bloodstone pointed at a table close to the viewports. “Shall we? I want to get a good look at your pals.”
Walter followed him to the table and sat. While the viewport allowed them to easily observe the Graveyard’s central courtyard, a bank of monitors at the junction of wall and floor provided shots of various interiors. One showed Snorri and Aniki off to the north in a staging area known as the Morgue. Despite the dark decor, or perhaps because of it, they fought in ’Mechs painted a ghostly white. Snorri piloted a Locust, and Aniki had chosen a Clint.
The battle pitted them against two other MechFighters, Moll Hamner and Hank Styles. Hamner drove a blood-red UrbanMech trimmed in gold—reportedly in homage to Caine. It sported an autocannon in the right arm and a small laser in the left. The latter weapon wouldn’t be terribly effective unless the fighting got in close, but in a venue where hide-and-seek was a viable strategy, it might just decide the outcome. Styles fought from inside a Hermes, relying on a pair of medium lasers and a flamer. That ’Mech usually relied on speed to keep it safe, and short sprints worked well in the Graveyard. He’d painted his ’Mech dark blue with red trimming.
Bloodstone sat forward, elbows on knees. “Strategy would be to kill the fast ones and grind down the heavy hitters.”
“Trying out for holovid color analyst?”
“Naw, I just like belaboring the obvious.” Bloodstone cast him a sidelong glance. “I’m pulling for your guys, just so you know.”
“So’s the smart money.”
A sharp tone reverberated through the Graveyard, and the ’Mechs moved out. Camera shots kept up with the teams as they advanced through the warrens and corridors to reach the central courtyard. While one team or the other could have opted to thread its way through the labyrinth and try to achieve some surprise, they’d both been built to function best in the partly open space in the courtyard. The tunnels limited speed and made the faster, lightly armored ’Mechs far more vulnerable to a close-range shot.
Aniki and her brother advanced with the practiced ease that came from a lifetime of familiarity with each other. Snorri moved up far enough to scout ahead, then waited for Aniki’s Clint to come up and cover him. Conversely, Styles pushed his humanoid Hermes forward faster and continued just as the UrbanMech achieved a good overwatch position. While having gotten this far in the Platinum Crown Tournament proved Styles and Hamner were a good team, they missed being hand in glove with each other.
The Hermes reached the courtyard ahead of Snorri, coming in through the southwest corner. He slid north, finding cover behind a large gravestone that had been tipped over. He positioned himself at the corner of its base, right arm pointed north. As Snorri’s Locust entered from the northwest, Styles triggered a red beam that flashed well wide of its intended target.
Snorri cut east, heading toward the far corner, where a mammoth mechanical spider sat atop a web woven from steel cables. He disappeared beneath the web, his smaller ’Mech negotiating the openings easily. The holovid monitor switched over to magnetic resonance, showing the webbing as almost an impenetrable wall. Styles tracked and took a second shot, but it also missed.
Behind him, Hamner came onto the battlefield. She advanced toward a small memorial about ten meters from his position. She had no shot, and Walter half expected her to move up while Styles dashed for the massive fountain with weeping angels in the middle of the courtyard. When Styles failed to move, she drifted back south and east, using a seven-meter-tall granite marker for cover.
A red beam shot from beneath the web. It hit the UrbanMech on the right shoulder, turning the armor on the top of the arm to slag. Cheers and groans greeted the shot—those who bet on Snorri to hit first being the happiest.
“Was that luck or…?”
“He aimed for the gap and, when he saw movement, hit her at the speed of light.” Walter allowed himself a chuckle. “If they’re going to worry about him and think they have him trapped in that web, it’s not going to be a long fight.”
Styles brought the Hermes up to speed and drove s
traight at the fountain. The UrbanMech pushed further east, but another seven-meter-tall memorial blocked her straight shot at the web. To get a good angle, she’d have to hit the east wall and fire north. She pushed her ’Mech, realizing that if she didn’t have a shot, neither did Snorri.
“All they need to do is switch to infrared sensors, and your boy will be a candle in that webbed cave.”
Neither Styles nor Hamner felt they had shots, but Snorri disagreed. Twin lasers flashed from within the dark corner, lancing out at the Hermes. Neither beam reached the ’Mech, however. They hit the fountain’s geyser, instantly converting the water into a billowing cloud of steam.
“Snorri, you are brilliant.” Walter clapped his hands. “Damn.”
Because the web interfered with magnetic resonance scanning and the darkness hid Snorri from visible light, both his opponents had flicked their sensors over to infrared. The superheated steam blinded that sensor configuration. The damage would clear in a few seconds, but it might as well be a lifetime.
Aniki’s Clint entered the courtyard through the same opening that had admitted her brother. Her ’Mech’s right arm came up, displaying the autocannon muzzle where a hand should have been. Fire erupted, launching a stream of projectiles that ripped clear up the right side of the UrbanMech’s torso. Had the shot hit the previously damaged right arm, it would have torn it clean off, eliminating the stricken ’Mech’s most powerful weapon.
Hitting the ’Mech’s flank proved costlier. The projectiles shattered all the armor and began to ricochet inside the ’Mech’s barrel chest. Glowing green liquid sprayed as a heat sink exploded. Then, tightly packed strings of autocannon ammunition began to spill out as if Aniki’s shot had eviscerated the UrbanMech. Like a string of firecrackers, the trailing belt of shells began to go off and would have completely combusted save that one detonation severed the link. Still, the detonating shells blasted armor from the red ’Mech’s right leg and right arm, crushing armor and shredding myomer fiber actuators.
Catastrophe Unlimited Page 9