13 – Ringing the Bell

  Hector watched the two fighters leaving the bottom of the silo—the “pit” as he’d heard others call it—one of them bloodied, leaning to the side to relieve pressure on his ribs, the other triumphant, grinning stupidly through a new gap in his teeth. Of the four fights he’d watched, theirs had been the most entertaining, but none had been anything special. One fighter with a mechanical arm might have done some damage, but his opponent had been too fast and too damn sturdy for him to capitalize. He’d lost when he failed to slip a surprisingly quick uppercut.

  As the crowd cheered and mingled, people moved to collect or pay bets. Pete had employees circulate with carts, pushing their way through the crowds to sell their wares: beer in recycled bottles and bags of salty snacks. Both were overpriced, but people paid; watching men beat themselves bloody was thirsty business.

  Hector was leaning on the railing, staring down at the red-tinted sand, wondering how much blood it hid, when a wiry young man squeezed into the gap on his left, nudging him with his elbow. “Hey.”

  Hector looked at him: dark eyes, hair cut like a broccoli floret, scars around his lips, a missing front tooth, and cauliflower ears. He was small, but he was a fighter.

  “Um, hey,” the kid repeated when Hector only stared.

  “What?”

  “You gonna fight Vasque in the all-comer match?”

  Hector didn’t answer.

  “Well, that’s the rumor. Bojo saw you watching the fights and started asking around. Word is you work for Grando. That right?”

  Hector turned back to the sand, running his gaze toward the far side of the silo where Pete’s platform jutted out away from the metal walkway. The fight boss had a commanding view of the pit from that perch, and it looked like he was getting ready to speak.

  “Yo, man, you can’t hear me?”

  As Pete cleared his throat into the mic and tapped something on his little floating control glass, the speakers crackled and the background music got louder, switching to an up-tempo beat. Hector glanced at the kid, saw no sign of animosity in his wide eyes, and took pity on him. “Yeah, I’m fighting.”

  “Oh cool, man! You’re new around here, right? You know anything about Vasque? I could give you some—”

  Hector held up a hand. “I’m good.” He gestured toward Pete’s platform. “I want to hear.”

  The kid nodded. “I’m Alec.” He held out a fist, and Hector punched his knuckles—just hard enough to make a satisfying thud.

  The music faded, and Pete’s voice cut through the din: “Time for the main event, everyone! The Friday night all-comer match, and do we all know who’s defending his title?”

  As he asked the question, the crowd went wild. Their cheers were disjointed and frenetic, but Hector could make out the repeated refrain: Vasque, Vasque, Vasque! He looked at the kid. “He’s popular?”

  Alec nodded, his brown eyes glinting in the overhead lights. “He won the all-comer last week—beat five guys and almost killed one of them.”

  “He modded? Use an aura system?”

  “Yeah! You’ll see—he has dermal plates and his reflexes are wired.”

  “No aura?”

  Alec shook his head. “He says it’s trash.”

  Hector smiled and turned back to the silo, where Pete was speaking again. “That’s right, everyone! Vasque is back to defend his title, and thanks to the generous wagers you all have put up, he’s got a purse worth fifteen-hundred to defend in the first round!” Pete played it up, pausing to let the crowd cheer, then he pointed, and it felt like his finger was aimed directly at Hector. It made him uncomfortable, so he stopped leaning on the railing and stood up straight. “Looks like we already have some challengers lining up by the bell!”

  Hector scowled, irritated at being called out, but then he realized the people around him weren’t looking his way; they were looking behind him. He turned and saw what Pete meant: two shirtless men stood near the rough, sweat- and blood-stained rope that hung along the inside of the silo wall. They were glaring at each other, clearly vying for the right to ring the bell first, but Hector didn’t understand why. The smart thing would be to let Vasque and the other challengers fight first unless he’d misunderstood some part of the rules—

  As though he’d read Hector’s mind, Pete continued with his blaring announcement: “If you’re new to the silo, here’s how the all-comer match works: the purse grows with each fight, but the fighters never walk away empty-handed! Even losers take ten percent, and the winner of each match locks in another ten. Everything left over goes to the final winner!”

  Hector nodded; now it made sense. The more fights someone won, the bigger their prize at the end. He strode toward the rope, but he was too slow. The guy on the right—an older, muscular man with enough hair on his chest and back to give a gorilla a run for its money—gave the other challenger a shove and jerked the rope.

  “Our first challenger, and Vasque isn’t even in the pit yet! What a night this is shaping up to be!” Pete screamed into the mic. “Let me see…who is that? It’s—it’s Roy Lund!” His voice had gone up an octave with excitement. “Lund the Basher hasn’t fought since last Garland Day! What a night! Get your bets in!”

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  Hector watched as Lund walked to the ladder on the edge of the platform, and people made room for him to climb down. Then he walked over to the rope, eyeing the other guy. He was also middle-aged, with a well-muscled physique and lots of tatts. His ginger hair was shaved into a partial mohawk, and his augmented eyes tracked Hector’s movements, spinning and shifting colors like pinwheels. It was a little off-putting to watch, so Hector focused on his nose.

  “I’m next,” the guy growled.

  Hector moved closer to the rope, his spine stiffening, some heat crawling up his neck, through his skull and into his eyes. The man stepped back.

  The crowd had gotten louder, and he figured Vasque was in the pit; the fight would start soon. Picturing the two fighters squaring off, Hector realized he wasn’t being smart. Sure, a bigger purse was nice, but winning was probably more important. He had a chance to watch the others fight, but he couldn’t do that if he stood there competing to be the next to pull the rope. Without another word, he turned and walked back to the railing.

  “That was crazy, man! I’ve never seen one of those guys back off like that!” Alec said, squeezing up to the railing beside him again.

  “Those guys?”

  “The old regulars. They’re like a…club, I guess. Guys who’ve won in the silo a few times.”

  Hector nodded, but he didn’t take his eyes off the two men in the arena. Lund was bigger than Vasque, but Vasque was taller with longer arms. More than that, he was geared up more than any of the people Hector had seen since waking—save maybe the rusters he’d fought. Vasque wasn’t sporting rust-tech, though. His torso and neck were clad in sleek, gray-green armored synth-skin. His fists were plasteel with shiny alloy knuckles. He moved like a panther as he circled Lund, his red crystalline eyes gleaming.

  Hector knew immediately that Vasque would win. Lund looked powerful, and he had a certain kind of fighter’s grace, but he looked like prey before Vasque. When the buzzer sounded and they began to fight, Hector gripped the railing, surprised by the level of violence that immediately broke out. The earlier fights had been like exhibitions in comparison—tame, almost friendly matches. Vasque and Lund were different.

  Vasque attacked in a flurry of blows. Lund turtled-up, fists high, protecting his face and neck and eating punches that sent his flesh rippling with the impacts. He grunted and moved with the blows, but Vasque was relentless until Lund roared and charged him, arms ripping the air in wild hooks. Vasque backed off, and Hector thought he might try to regroup, but he surprised him by jumping into a spinning heel kick that caught Lund on the temple. The big man’s head snapped to the side, and he backed off, dazed.

  Vasque pressed the attack, but Lund was tough, and he recovered enough to defend. Even so, the exchange had set the tempo for the fight; Vasque slowly wore him down, while Hector silently rooted for Lund. The longer the other man could hold up, the longer Hector had to study Vasque’s technique. He had a pretty good idea of how the champ fought by the time he finally brought the bloodied, battered Lund down. When he smashed into the sand like a felled tree, the crowd went wild.

  “That’s a knockout!” Pete screamed into the mic.

  Hector turned to regard the rope. Only the one other fighter stood there, and he met Hector’s gaze, arching an eyebrow. Hector turned back to the pit, giving his tacit approval. A moment later the bell rang, and Pete pointed toward where Hector stood on the wider portion of the metal walkway.

  “We have our next challenger, and look who it is, folks! Uwe Rasp!”

  The crowd cheered, and Hector watched, his dark, measuring gaze tracking every move as the red-haired fighter with the spiral eyes climbed down into the pit. Of all the fighters he’d seen in the silo that night, only two had used any aura, and neither had been very impressive. The first, a young fighter wearing a classic martial arts gi and sporting a shiny, chrome skull plate, had fired off a flickering blue aura and used kinetic force to knock his opponent’s legs out from under him—a pretty solid move, if pedestrian, that had resulted in a win.

  The other had been an enormously overweight fighter with a spotty, sputtering orange aura. He’d used some kind of speed boost and neatly turned the tables on his opponent, moving with more grace than a man his size had any right to do. Neither of the aura wielders had systems that seemed strong, but they’d used them cleverly and with just the right timing to win their fights.

  Hector’s current skin had low aura sensitivity, but even so, he’d felt a wave of it gathering around the spiral-eyed fighter before he’d backed off during their little face-off at the rope. The man had a move or two under his belt, and Hector wanted to see how Vasque would handle him. Watching them now, he thought they were a good match, size-wise, as they circled each other with similar postures—it might be a decent fight.

  “You really still gonna ring that bell?” the kid asked.

  Hector glanced at him but didn’t answer.

  “I mean, after watching how Vasque took out Lund? Aren’t you worried?”

  Hector shrugged. “It’s just a fight.”

  “I’ve seen people die in the silo.”

  “This the only fight around?”

  “What? Nah, there are underground matches all over the city. Every neighborhood’s got one.”

  “Do any reward potentia?”

  “Huh?”

  “Aura potentia?” He tried some slang terms: “Juice? Vapor? Spark? Glow?”

  “Oh, right.” Alec shook his head. “Nah, I didn’t know you could even give that stuff out.”

  Hector looked at the kid, his curiosity overriding his desire to watch the fight. “Aura’s not too big down here, huh?”

  “Nah, but I’m saving up. Well, I don’t know if I want to buy a system or some augs first.” He nodded toward the fighters. “Like I said, Vasque says auras are for losers.”

  Hector snorted. Vasque was a big fish in a tiny pond. If he ever planned to fight anywhere else, he’d need to adapt. Hector hadn’t even begun to shape his skin with potentia, but if things went the way he planned, he’d be doing things that were beyond cybernetics. In slum fights like this, though, he supposed augs were the quicker, easier path.

  The two fighters had traded blows a few times by then, and Hector was beginning to wonder if he’d been wrong about the guy with the spiral eyes. “What’s his name?”

  “Vasque?”

  “The other one.”

  “Uwe Rasp. People just call him Rasp.”

  The two men grappled for a moment, and then Vasque slipped under Rasp’s guard, got around behind him, and applied a naked chokehold.

  “It’s over!” the kid said.

  Hector shook his head. He’d seen a flicker of green in Rasp’s eyes. “Watch.”

  Vasque squeezed, his thick arms bulging as he pulled Rasp back, hoisting him to his tiptoes, strangling him. It looked like Rasp was about to succumb, but then he flared with a brilliant green aura. Hector blinked against the glare, and when he refocused on the fight, Rasp was standing behind Vasque, delivering a brutal kidney punch.

  “Did he blink?” Alec asked, rubbing his eyes. Blink was another word for phase, which was another word for teleport. There were quite a few aura talents that led down roads like that, but Hector was pretty surprised to see someone in that slum with the capability.

  He grunted, shrugging. It was a valuable talent, but it wouldn’t win the fight for Rasp; he was clearly already out of aura, and his punch had been ineffectual against Vasque’s dermal plating. The champ whirled, misdirected with a left jab and then caught Rasp under his jaw with his other metal-plated fist.

  Even from twenty meters away, Hector heard the crunch of the impact, and he watched as Uwe Rasp toppled. The crowd went wild, and Pete announced Vasque’s second victory; Hector turned to the rope. Nobody was waiting to pull it, so he walked over and waited. As soon as Pete stopped carrying on about how spectacular the fight had been and how much money Vasque was looking to make, he rang the bell.