Chaos Cipher (24 page)

‘
You gotta
want it,’ Pierce Lewis was saying ‘nobody is going to give it to
you, boy.’ His motivational speech was like a montage to a run off
of water stained pink from Hattle’s blood. The stained water
spilled from the decanter crashing over the back of his neck to a
bucket between his knees, skeltering down his arms and shoulders.
‘Nobody will hand it on a plate!’ Pierce was shouting. ‘It wouldn’t
be worth doing if it was given to you.’

Hattle Lewis
spat to his side. His mouth was cut, his right eye swollen over.
But he wasn’t giving up. He just needed to breathe. Fifteen seconds
left to get back his breath. Fifteen seconds to suck whatever
nutrients was in the sweat filled air, to regain his strength. In
the ring, fifteen seconds felt like a long time. He could work with
it now.

‘
Are you
going back in there?’

He’d said
yes, though his shoulders were weak from holding up his guard and
his stomach was burning from a tension of cramped muscles he said
he was going back in the ring.

‘
You don’t
sound sure to me-’

‘
YES!’

‘
You better
go back in there,’ Pierce simmered, ‘you little fucking worm,
you’re the reason your mother left, you know that? Said you were
too busy wanting to play in the garden. Said you wanted to learn
how to grow flowers, you pathetic fucking wimp. She said no son of
mine is growing up a fucking fairy…’

‘
No sir!’ He
growled as Pierce slipped a gum shield into his son’s
mouth.

‘
No sir won’t
get her back you gotta want it! Show me you got the balls.’ Pierce
snapped. ‘I’m not taking my faggot son to visit his mother if he
doesn’t have a set of balls!’

‘
Yes
sir!’

‘
Get the fuck
in there!’

The countdown
was over. The bell rang on the automated wall clock. Hattle shifted
into the middle of the ring where his sparring partner was waiting.
He clenched his fists, the spring of the leather gloves bending and
creaking with tension. Berengar lifted his huge arms. He was a good
deal taller than Hattle, a mercenary who acted as his personal
trainer and sparring shadow. Back in the hardlands of the
Ameritropolis they called him Berengar the Bear. It was said that
he mauled cyborg fighters and tore out their hardware. And he was
under instructions not to go easy on Hattle. Sometimes, Hattle felt
like the fight was more than just about winning, but about
survival. Even when Berengar had choked him into a blackout he
could hear his father yelling, bellowing for him to fight back,
salted with every verbal insult he could think up in his blind
rage, to get up, to man up.

More often
than not, Hattle would wake up to Berengar telling him to get some
rest. His father gone, a bloody damp towel would lie in his place
somewhere in ring. But not this time!

Hattle felt
his nose crunch as Berengar’s fists hammered down on its fattened
bridge and he countered and struck the man’s lower jaw with a swift
uppercut. He danced around, careful not to stay too close to the
Bear. Hattle cleared a whole lot of blood from his nose and
encouraged Berengar to bring more. The Bear wasn’t shy. Those
powerful blows came at Hattle’s defence. Like hammers they crashed
against his arms and shoulders, like bricks they collided and shook
his bones. But Hattle kept his ground. It was the first time he’d
ever seen Berengar drop his guard. It was just a fleeting moment,
but it was all Hattle needed. It was the first time he’d ever seen
him slip up. And as Hattle launched his right hook crashing into
Berengar’s face, making it the first time he’d ever put the Bear
down. Oh and how he’d make it count.

Berengar
crashed on his side and before the man could recover his efforts,
Hattle launched a kick into his face, spraying blood out of the
Bear’s lips. He straddled, bringing down the fists.

‘
Hattle!’

He roared
with triumph, and brought down his elbow onto the Bear’s lips, an
elbow unpadded by protective guards.

‘
HATTLE!’

The Bear’s
hand went up for submission. Hattle batted it away. He came down on
Berengar the Bear and unfixed another tooth and before he lost
himself in blood lust, Pierce dragged him up.

‘
HATTLE!’ His
father’s voice reached.

Hattle pushed
Pierce back and Pierce stepped forth, looming over his son with
furious eyes burning intensely.

‘
Are you out
of your FUCKING mind?’ he yelled. ‘It’s over. The fight is over,
you won!’

Hattle gasped
for breath. He saw the blood on his father’s shirt, a rusty maroon
hand print spread on the fabric. Berengar groaned as he turned over
like a half cooked slab of meat.

‘
He could
kill you,’ Pierce reminded Hattle, ‘you stupid fucking halfwit,
remember who you’re dealing with there. He’s here to teach
you.’

Hattle spat
his gum shield into the ring and rubbed the sweat from his short
red hair.

‘
From now
on,’ Hattle gasped. ‘I’ll be giving the lessons.’

‘
You arrogant
little fucker,’ Pierce said as Hattle lumbered to the corner of the
ring. ‘Get changed. I’ll get you an ice pack.’

Pierce held
out a hand to Berengar but the big man refused help and climbed
gradually to his feet, unstrapping his gloves.

‘
I’m fine,’
he growled, eyeing Hattle.

‘
Up-stairs,
both of you.’ Pierce said, stepping through the ropes. ‘I’ve got
brandy. We’re resolving your differences there before they destroy
this good working relationship you have.’

*

The Lewis
property was one of the biggest areas an individual had in Cerise
Timbers. East B’ One’s communities had allowed him to keep his
land, but warned that it would alienate Pierce Lewis from them. It
was a modern and conceptual design of unusual shapes, rendered
during the commercial heights of the three dimensional printing
revolution. It had been composed of geometric shapes he knew not
the names for, rounded and structured honeycombs, each one a room
with a cylindrical pillar centring the building. It had a square
and plain looking shoulder to the right, a rather meaningless
asymmetry to the design that said something about the architect’s
signature. Lewis began by pouring himself a glass of brandy as he
toured across the room’s varnished pine living room floor. He
offered one to Berengar who was now dressed more formally and
tonguing his broken dental. Hattle came in wearing a shirt and
rubbing his head down with a towel. He took a sip of the brandy and
hissed with pain as the alcohol stung his cut lip. It made his eyes
water.

The Lewis
aesthetic sensibilities were minimalist; a space of white square
sofas, couches, glass tables and neat wall lights the bulbs of
which were hidden in the contours from where only light spilled
onto the pale cream walls. Everything was meticulously paralleled,
paintings of strange renaissance pop-art or meaningless colour
splatter, hung upon doors and walls in an ascending order, as
though to demonstrate some semblance of artistic appreciation,
however, Pierce Lewis knew nothing about the art work itself, only
that it was some twenty first century shit. The room was vacuous,
neat, untarnished save the occasional ashtray on the glass gable
littered with the stubs of previous smokes. Things were ordered and
without statement.

‘
What have we
been preparing for?’ Pierce asked Hattle. ‘I’m inviting another
champion from the Atominii hardlands of Moscowai. A cage fighter
called Raw Dog who goes under the training of Vilen Krupin. You
know who Krupin is, don’t you?’

Hattle knew.
He’d fought with some of Krupin’s champions before. He trains them
in the hardlands and fights his students to near death in the
street cages. Pierce and Krupin were in good communication. Pierce
Lewis had worked hard keeping contact with such violent men and
private military cyborgs and the likes. Krupin was working on
getting a large following so he could return to the Atominii once
more. He had many shady businesses, from human traffic to cage
fighting and neuro-commerce. Hattle knew him as a bloated pervert
with a sick sense of humour.

‘
You’ll be
fighting Raw Dog,’ said Pierce, ‘and just like last time you’ll
win! You got lucky last time god knows. I want you to keep that
running streak. Krupin holds us in high regard since last time and
he’s going to promote the family name on your
shoulders.’

‘
He’s a
sloppy defence,’ said Berengar eyeing Hattle, his tongue running
over the bloody gum where his tooth was knocked out.

‘
Speak for
yourself,’ Hattle said, adding his moniker with splenetic emphasis,
‘Berengar the Bear.’

‘
Boy,’ Pierce
said sharply. ‘You will show some respect. If it wasn’t for
Berengar’s patience and his time you would not have gotten to this
stage. You’d do well to show some fucking gratitude.’

‘
It was just
one victory,’ said the Bear. ‘Out of many fights we’ve had. The
times when you lay in my arms after I knocked you unconscious, like
a little baby. But I didn’t knock your teeth out kid. You are not
ready.’

‘
My victory
was overdue,’ Hattle assured. ‘I won, Bear. And I’ll stay on top.
From here I’ll only get stronger and faster.’

‘
You’ll get
cocky,’ said Berengar, ‘and make stupid mistakes.’

‘
You saw me.’
Hattle told his father. ‘I got his teeth! He’ll remember training
with me. Everyone I face I will leave them something to remember me
by…’

‘
I saw a
maniac in there today,’ Pierce said. ‘Not a skilled fighter, a
young man who wants to prove something rather than fighting
honourably. You need to be more careful.’

Hattle
scowled and drank more brandy, wincing slightly with the pain. He
finished the glass and hurled it smashing to the floor. Berengar
sat forward but Pierce held out his hand, instructing Berengar to
make no bones about it. And Hattle was already leaving the room in
stride.

*

That
afternoon was raining. He thought he’d wash the wounds down in it.
Hattle zipped the hooded jacket but left the hood down. He hurried
along the garden strip to the security gate and passed through the
spin cage where the house computer’s signal discrimination
recognised his Quantic-W and granted his departure. The sky was
pale and grey, spilling dull silver beads rattling across the
fields. He looked on at the great shell of the city dome just a few
kilometres ahead, upon which rain sang like a detuned radio. Hattle
began to jog, lifting his legs high. He made his way onto a path,
let the rain soak his short red hair, trickling down his neck and
shoulders. After a couple of minutes he made his way onto a dirt
path, one of many traversing the forest lines to the city. He
passed several people talking under their hoods and carting organic
food in a small cart. Just up ahead was another runner on the road.
He was short, a grey hood up over his head attached to a white,
short sleeve shirt. He had a large backpack slung over his
shoulders, stacked with equipment, a short rope dangling from the
bottom. Hattle decided this runner was in the way. He pursued and
overtook, almost brushing the kid’s shoulder as he passed and once
his point was proven, Hattle bared no further notice of him. He
decided he was going to make his usual route, a ninety minute easy
jog, nothing too strenuous. He’d keep a steady pace, just enough to
burn off his anger.

Suddenly, the
kid in the white shirt and grey hood overtook Hattle, his bag of
equipment jingling.

‘
No you
don’t!’ He said playfully as he passed. There was joy in his tone.
He was making
fun
of his training. As though it were a
fucking
game!

Hattle
seethed. He picked up pace, burning muscular legs getting faster.
The kid was ten meters ahead, and he was fast for a scrawny little
weasel. And he was getting faster. Hattle picked up the pace but
the little rat bastard was really quick, and they’d already pushed
over a hundred meters and he’d not gained on him much. Hattle
pushed harder until his legs burned like fire. He noticed something
unusual about the kid just ahead. The rope trailing behind him, it
wasn’t a rope. He got a little closer, sucking in huge gulps of air
and he could see now…That’s a tail. It’s the gene-freak!

I will not be
mocked by this mutant kid.

Filled with
confidence Hattle put all he had left into sprinting. He was still
sore after his fight, but this one he could not lose. Kyo held his
thumb out.

‘
Hey you’re
real fast!’ He shouted back as though the race was effortless. ‘But
I’m the runner in these parts. What’s your name?’

Hattle
focussed on his breathing. To hell with introductions. He was going
to make sure this kid would never forget his name. His legs burned,
he pushed but Kyo always seemed slightly ahead. Acid bubbled
through his guts now. His muscles were seizing up with cramp but
his mind pushed on. He wasn’t going to be able to overtake Kyo, but
he could get close. He knew he had the energy to get close. If he
could just get close enough he’d get hold of him. Hattle could hear
the jingling heavy equipment in Kyo’s backpack now and he made a
grab, his fist clenched around the gene-freak’s tail.