Connor Rix Chronicles 1: Rules of Force (3 page)

She gave him a
teasing little pout. "I'll bet you didn't come up here to see me at all.
I'll bet you're just here for some gossip."

"You know
how it is, Kase. A man's gotta earn a living."

"You gonna
let me in on it?"

"It's not
that big a job right now. Short-time work. But it's a good connection. If I can
wrap this up neatly, there might be a lot of work for all of us down the
line."

"All of us?
Big Fella too?" She smiled as she said it.

"Especially
Big Fella. If I can talk him into it, that is."

"So what's
up?"

"It's the
Fightin' Mads. I need to see them. Is Joey Pegg still hanging out with the
MoFos?"

"Joey? Is
he in trouble?"

"Not him,
but maybe some of his friends."

"Yeah, he's
still there. But Rix — there are three of them there now."

"Three
Fightin' Mads?"

She nodded.

"I need to
get into that warehouse gym they use. I need to see who else is there. But I
hear they're pretty touchy about who they let in. Any ideas?"

"Hang on a
second." She got up from the table and walked back into the bar. Rix
noticed that a few of the conversations in the beer garden trailed off as men
watched her pass by. She was easy on the eyes, no doubt about it, Rix
reflected.

She came back
out and walked purposefully to the table. She reached out to give him
something. "Here. Take this."

He looked in his
hand. A business card, bent at the corners. It had a name he didn't recognize
on it and a web address, that was it.

"Show them
this when you go to the warehouse gym. It should get you through the door. He's
not with the MoFos, he's more on the extreme mixed martial arts side, but he's
respected there. I helped him out with an, er, troublesome fighter last year,
and he's been trying to employ me ever since. He also asked me to help recruit
candidates, so this is legit. Sort of."

He looked up at
her. "KC, for a bar owner, you sure are pretty good at the art of
snooping."

"Just don't
forget me when this extra work comes around. I have a lot of hours to fill, you
know. A lot. Now sit and eat your sandwich and tell me all about this girl who
won't marry you yet."

****

Rix was back at
the warehouse shortly after dark. He parked his truck around the corner,
grabbed his battered gym bag and walked to the small, unassuming door on the
side of the building. A solitary light cast a yellowish glow on the metal door.

He pulled on the
door handle but it was locked from the inside, as he expected. He knocked once,
then a second time more loudly.

An enormous man
opened the door. At least six-six, black skin, impossibly muscled.
Third-generation Brazilian steroid, Rix quickly surmised. His experiences had
told him you just couldn't get that big on anything less. Ever since the
second-generation Brazilian steroids had been proven to deliver muscle mass
without the inconvenience of heart deterioration and the indignity of shrunken
testicles, their consumption had become much more common. The third-gen 'roids
were even better, although they were much harder to get. The Brazilian
government had quietly limited the manufacture of the "B3s," but
there was also some other bottleneck in the supply. Nobody Rix had spoken with
was very clear on the source.

Rix blinked his
optics to life.

"Yes?"
the big man said, looking down on him.

"I'm here
trying to pick up some sparring work. They tell me this is the place to
come."

"You look
kind of small," he said, eying him up and down. "What's your
stats?"

"Six-two,
two-twenty."

"You
Modified?"

"Yeah, I'm
rigged."

"So why do
you want to come get beat on? Gets pretty rough inside. Seems like a tough way
to make a little coin, having some supermen pound on you all night. Tell me
honest"

Rix shrugged.
"I wanna see if I can get the MoFos interested in me. I'd like to get
picked up by the league. I hear the money's good."

"The
money's not better than going to sleep in your own bed tonight, and not in some
hospital ward."

Rix pulled out
the business car KC had given him and passed it to the larger man. "He's
the one who told me I should look for work here. He saw some potential in
me."

The man eyed the
card briefly, then handed it back to Rix. "Alright. Come in and see if
anyone will pay you for the privilege of knocking the snot outta you." He
opened the door. "Look for Shorty. If you get hired, the gym gets 20
percent. This ain't no charity."

Rix walked
through. He glanced around to get his bearings. The gym was laid out with free
weight stations along one wall, with two rows of fighting rings of various
sorts running down the middle. Punching bags, stationary bikes, and a couple of
modern weight machines lined the other wall.

It smelled like
the embodiment of human sweat, like a hundred other gyms Rix had visited. He
immediately felt comfortable, despite knowing that very large men were going to
start hitting him soon.

He started
walking alongside the rings toward the back wall, where people were gathered.
The ropes surrounding the rings appeared to be color-coded, with each color
designating the workout space of the various organizations.

Judging by the men sparring in the
rings, it looked like the red-roped rings were the MoFos' designated areas.

As he walked
past, Rix engaged his optics and stored images of each of the men fighting in
the rings. No Fightin' Mads, but plenty of noteworthy Modifieds.

Two men were
standing by the wall near the far ring. One was about five-foot-ten, the other
nearly seven feet tall.

Rix walked up to
the taller man. "You must be Shorty," he said.

The man snorted.
He looked down at his smaller companion. "For once, you owe me a silver
dollar."

Turning to Rix,
he said, "Yeah, I'm Shorty. What's up?"

Rix extended his
hand with the business card KC had given him. "Travis Burnet," he
said, using identity number four. "My friend said this was the place to go
for sparring work and to try out for the Modified Fighting Organization."

The tall man
took the card and eyed it. "You're rigged, of course?"

"Of
course."

"Alright
Mr. Burnet. Let's see what you got. Get into your sweats, tape up and come back
to ring number three in fifteen minutes."

"Yes
sir," Rix nodded, and headed to the locker room. There was a handful of
other fighters already there, most preoccupied with changing into workout gear.
They ignored him as he made his way along the row of benches. He walked to one
of the end lockers where he could sit on a bench facing the wall, turned away
from the others. He quickly removed his optic membranes, storing them in their
secure case. They were exceedingly expensive pieces, so the case came with two
different tracking devices, vastly improving the odds of recovery should they
be stolen.

He finished
changing, grabbed the mesh bag that held his sparring gear, placed his duffel
bag in a locker and returned to the gym floor. He staked out one of the
punching bags and began his warm-up.

A steady
procession of fighters climbed in and out of the various rings while Rix went
through his exercises. Most of the MoFos and pro wrestlers were obviously
bulked up with one of the top three new-gen steroid variants and were ripped
like professional body builders. He recognized a couple of them from TV. The
mixed martial arts guys were solid but less bulky and much quicker.

Rix found that
one of the stationary bikes was the best place to warm up and keep an eye on
the most number of fighters. He couldn't remember ever seeing so many Modifieds
in one place.

"Ok,
Travis, come get bitchslapped." It was Shorty, looming over Rix from his
right.

The bitchslap
part wasn't just slang. A very large man walked up from behind Shorty. Rix
recognized his sparring partner immediately from recent Modified Fighting
Organization webcasts. "Bitchslap" Hernandez was a hulking
six-foot-five fan favorite, one of the league's highest rated stars. And
another B3 user, Rix judged. His biceps were almost comically large,
cantaloupes covered in skin. His pecs looked like they were carved from oak.

"You the
guy lookin' for a session?"

"Yeah, Bi…,
er, man."

"It's
Antonio. Call me Tony. C'mon."

They walked over
to one of the rings with the red ropes and slipped through. Hernandez walked
over to the opposite corner and threw a towel over the top rope. He took a swig
from a water bottle and eyed Rix casually.

"So you can
take a punch? A real punch? ' Cause havin' to call an ambulance really eats up
my workout time."

Rix nodded.
"Not to mention mine."

"Cool. Get
your gear on."

Rix pulled his
headgear and mouthpiece out of his mesh bag and put them on. Then he slipped on
his hand pads and cinched them at the wrist. He shadowboxed for a minute to
settle in.

"Ready when
you are."

They moved to
the center of the ring and circled each other slowly. The Modified Fighting
Organization rulebook allowed for almost any style of fighting, so bouts were a
jumbled combination of boxing, mixed martial arts, and pro wrestling
showmanship. Because the fighters were Modified to varying degrees — some
extremely so — the combatants wore protective gear during a fight, giving
the bouts the feel of an old-time football post-tackle brawl.

Hernandez went
to work on Rix's ribs, throwing combinations, traditional boxing style. Rix absorbed
a few blows, as a sparring partner should, but also because he wanted to gauge
Hernandez's strength.

The man was
strong, no doubt, Rix judged. Hernandez obviously wasn't hitting full strength,
but Rix was still glad that he'd had the bone density Modification. Rix shifted
back a couple steps, held up his hand pads and let Hernandez pop off a few
jabs.

"Good,
good," Hernandez said. "Now let's fight like MoFos."

He threw an
arcing overhand right to Rix's head, which Rix deliberately let hit him full
on. He staggered slightly under the clanging blow. Hernandez then dropped to
the canvas and whipped around in a leg sweep. Rix saw it coming and hopped over
the man's legs, then dropped down while Hernandez was still on the floor and
secured him in a headlock. He only held it for a few seconds, then released and
jumped back to his feet.

Hernandez popped
back up instantly, and launched a series of blows. He was fast, Rix decided,
but not world-class fast. Rix allowed some of the shots to hit him directly, but
for most he moved just quickly enough so that the punches only landed as
glancing blows. Just to keep him honest, Rix threw a fast jab to the face that
Hernandez had no chance of avoiding. He stepped back and blinked.

"Nice
moves," Hernandez grunted. He stopped for a moment and pulled out his
mouthpiece. "Where'd you learn to fight?"

"Navy,"
Rix responded. He didn't offer any more information. He didn't want to leave
too memorable an impression here.
 

Hernandez
replaced his mouthpiece and moved straight at Rix, throwing jabs and following
with uppercuts. He lunged at Rix's midsection in a classic shoulder tackle,
taking Rix down to the canvas. Rix rolled with the fall, placing his knee
between himself
 
and Hernandez and
flipped the larger man over him onto his back. Hernandez immediately jumped to
his feet and began an obviously well-practiced series of punches and kicks.

Rix was trying
to avoid it, but the increased pace and quantity of punches was steadily moving
him into his high-speed response mode. The blood boosts already sharpened
response time, but Rix's adrenal Mod, known in the underground as "Fight
or Fight," was starting to assert itself. The adrenal Modification allowed
great bursts of ferocity and speed. It had come in handy more than once in
subduing other MIs. But once his blood was up, it was hard to control. He
didn't want to display that kind of ability in this setting.

He called for a
short break, and then he forced himself for a few minutes more to play the role
of sparring partner, absorbing punches, making half-hearted jabs and kicks in
return, showing just enough ability to make his presence in the ring
believable.

Rix noticed that
Hernandez was getting kind of ragged in his punches, and seemed frustrated at
his inability to land clean hard shots. Rix decided to end his session the
smart way — he allowed one of Bitchslap Hernandez's haymakers to land
cleanly on his jaw. It was a hard shot, and Rix only had to put on a little bit
of an act as he dropped to one knee. This would end the session convincingly.
His jaw ached, but it was the price for getting in the door.

 
"Had enough?" Hernandez asked,
trying to control his panting. Sweat streaked down his face.

"Yeah, it's
a good time for me to sit for a while," Rix said.

"Alright.
Nice work. Come back again sometime if you want another workout."

Rix exited the
ring and made a mental note of Hernandez's abilities for the report he would
add to his own files later. Hernandez was clearly using B3s, probably milder
blood boosts as well, to take advantage of the steroids. But nothing else was
obvious. It was a fairly modest list for a MoFo. Rix was frankly more impressed
by the minimal Modifications than if Bitchslap Hernandez had been rigged with
an entire checklist of Mods. He must have spent years doing it the hard way in
the gym. That was still the key for the pure strength junkies. Unless you
wanted to go mech, which was a very different matter.

Shorty came
around from the other side of the ring and squared up in front of Rix.
"You made him sweat, Burnet," he said. "Not bad at all. A few
good moves. Go get some water and towel off and I'll see if I can find someone
else for you to work with."