Zeroboxer (23 page)

After that, Macha talked less and fought more, though he still spat profanities and insults whenever they weren't trading blows. As much of an asshole as he was, the man was a strong zeroboxer, frustratingly good at defending against Carr's grabbing, and wicked fast. He gave a lot of deliberate openings that Carr quickly learned to recognize as traps that led to being hit. At the bell, it was still anyone's fight, though Carr thought he'd probably won the first round, narrowly.

“You're doing everything right,” Uncle Polly said into his ear, and again in person back on the deck. “Stay cool, pick him apart, just like you're doing.”

In the middle of the second round, Carr landed a punishing series of blows and a flying knee that started Macha's nose bleeding. The blood oozed onto his face like a giant, nasty red blister, but some of it floated free, half a dozen small dark bubbles drifting in front of the man's angry snarl.

Carr couldn't help himself. “A little harder to talk now, domie?”

Macha's face went scary dark. He started going for big hits, launching from weird angles, anything he could to land something on Carr. And he was relentless. Carr felt his heart rate skyrocket. But his mind grew calm. It hummed, found the pattern of the fight. He saw Macha's exuberant moves coming and threw himself into answering them. He still couldn't manage to grab and submit the man, but he was picking his places, landing strikes and the occasional throw. By the time the bell rang, he was pulling for air as hard as he ever had in a fight but confident he'd dominated the round.

Uncle Polly worked his hands over Carr's shoulders. “Breathe for me, Carr. Take it all the way in, let it
drop
out.
That's it.”

Carr looked past his coach's head, out across the crowd. It was unruly; people shouting, throwing their squeeze bottles, or releasing big floating globs of beer into the air. An announcement came over the speakers, sternly reminding everyone that untethering from their seats was strictly prohibited and would result in expulsion from the stadium.

Someone on or near the deck yelled, “Macha, you SUCK! Quit fooling and knock the earthworm out already!”

Scull toweled Carr off and took the ice pack from his neck so he didn't cool too much. “You've got this one,” Uncle Polly whispered, fast and excited. “One more round just like that last one, and you've got it. Don't do anything crazy, don't get distracted, just keep the pressure on. Keep it on and keep scoring the way you have.”

Carr nodded. His heart rate and breathing recovered. He unhooked his feet from the bar, stood up, and dove back through the flashing hatch.

There was a kind of frantic, darting hatred in Macha's eyes now, and a grim madness in the set of his lips. His skin, slippery with sweat, rippled with light when he moved, like that of a dark, wet eel. He stalked toward Carr murderously. His nose had stopped bleeding and his face had been cleaned off, but he sounded nasal when he spoke. “No Terran is going to win in this Cube.”

“Is that so.” Carr launched up and around a right angle, his cocked fist flying down at Macha's face.

The man barely slid his head out of the way, but Carr had the follow-up knee strike ready. They collided, grabbing for each other in a tangle of limbs, and as Carr's knee went into the man's stomach, Macha's right fist connected
with his ribs.

He knew right away something was wrong. The left side of his body erupted with unusual pain, as if a metal tool had been driven into his flesh. Macha hit him again and he jerked, tried to kick the man away. The Maniac—so aptly named—held on and punched him a third time, the impact landing like a hammer on a slab of meat, then nearly took forward control. Carr drove his knees up and his hips back with all his strength and the two of them flew apart.

Carr swiveled to get into position for a rebound, but his torso screamed at the movement and didn't complete the turn. He wondered if his ribs were cracked. He caught the wall with his stretched hands, his shoulders and arms straining to check his momentum, and the rest of him hit the wall flat. He pulled his feet back up under him before the impact could throw him off the surface, but Macha was coming at him again, like a comet. Carr brought his arms up to defend his face and the blow came down across his forehead, like the lash of a steel rod. He reeled in confusion, saw Macha still advancing, and dove out of the way, throwing himself into free space.

The Cube blurred and spun. He stretched his feet to the nearest incoming wall and bent his legs to stick the landing. Warmth was spreading across his brow, and when he put his hand up to his forehead, the fingers of his gloves came away dark and wet. He wiped again and a stream of blood came off into the air, a wobbly red worm breaking into segments.

“Carr!” Uncle Polly was saying, “What's going on in
there?”

“His gloves,” Carr said, although without his cuff, his coach couldn't hear him. “He's wrapped something in his gloves.” Weighted them with something sharp and heavy. Easy enough to do. Completely illegal. “You domie prick.” Carr held up his hands, trying to signal to the dour Martian referee, but all he managed to do was shout, “Hey, stop the—” before Yugo Macha flew at him with a barrage of strikes.

Carr grabbed for his opponent, tried to pull him close to jam up his attack, but the man's momentum was too great; he slammed into Carr and threw both of them free of the surface. Instead of trying to work his way into a proper submission hold, Macha held on to Carr's neck with one hand and swung deliriously with the other, hitting any part of Carr he could.

“Are you crazy?” Carr screamed at him. He'd lost track of the hits. Couldn't anyone see what was going on? Why weren't they stopping the fight?

“No … worm … beats … me,” Macha ground out between blows.

Carr's brain fired hot with rage. Macha wasn't out to win, just to maim. Even if he lost, or got disqualified and thrown out, he'd consider it a job well done to send Carr to the hospital. End his tournament run, one way or another.

He pushed past the pain lighting up all over his body and slammed his hands down on Macha's shoulders, heaving himself in the other direction. It didn't separate them, but it got his face away from the man's fists and Macha's head down to the level of Carr's chest. He landed an uppercut before they both collided with the wall. Carr got his feet in place first and planted his grippers hard, throwing his body into a blow that connected with Macha's kidney right before the Martian's fist opened another cut above Carr's eye.

Blood and sparks of light clouded his vision. He shook his head to clear it, saw bright globs of his own blood break free. He didn't feel pain anymore, just a kind of singular telescopic focus. He was going to kill this low domie cheat. He felt himself move before he knew what he was doing; he pulled Macha forward onto him as he threw his body backward. His back slammed into the wall and, as the rebound carried them both off the surface, Carr strained his torso to throw his legs around Macha's hips. His ribs screamed in protest, but he had forward control now,
finally
, and they were spinning. Injured and bleeding, he'd never felt so strong or fast. Every sight, sound, and sensation felt as sharp as cut ice. He slammed his fist into the man's cheek, then his mouth. He kept hitting, and hitting, just as he'd once told Enzo to do, even after the referee's whistle blew for the second time and the man came shooting up, waving his arms and halting the fight.

“Now
you stop the fight!” Carr shouted in disgust. “Where were you when he was cutting me?”

“Let me at him,” Macha gurgled, wild-eyed and drooling blood. The air in the Cube was filthy pink.

“Get back to your corners!” The referee shoved them a
part. “Now!”

Carr climbed back to his hatch and out onto the deck. Scull's face blanched. “Jesus.” He pulled Carr to his seat. Uncle Polly must have switched off his connection to Carr's receiver because Carr hadn't heard him yelling and cursing, as he was still doing now. The WCC official who was bearing th
e brunt of this assault said, “We'll review it, I said! Now get back before I have you and your fighter thrown out!”

“He's the one who should be thrown out.” Uncle Polly's finger shook with rage as he pointed in Macha's direction. “He cut my fighter! You saw it, and didn't stop the fight. What kind of warped gig are you domies running here?”

“I said get back!” the official shouted.

“Coach,” Carr called, and Polly broke off at last. He came over and got to work, helping Scull press towels to Carr's face. They came away red. The doctor came over to stitch him. Carr saw himself on the screens. He looked ghastly. Even worse than he'd expected. “He weighted his gloves, coach,” Carr said.

Bax Gant appeared on the deck. He bent down next to Carr, one hand on the railing. “You're sure, Luka? If you're going to make an accusation like that, you'd better be sure.”

“I'm sure.”

Gant went to speak to the officials. The cameras showed him and the president of the WCC gesturing and holding a low, intense conversation that couldn't be overheard. The noise from the stands churned like storm waves crashing against rocks. Furious Terran fans were shouting and throwing things. Two fights had broken out and security guards with thrusters were draggin
g people off.

Gant came back. “They're reviewing the fight.” He didn't hide the disgust in his voice. “Macha's people deny it. They showed the referee his gloves, said you were lying.”

“That's bullshit,” Carr said. “He has another pair. Or the domies are covering for each other.” He winced as the stitches went in. “Macha's a headcase and a cheat. He knew he was losing.”

“We can file a formal complaint and call for an investigation,” said Gant. “But that's not going to solve anything right now. The match will go to the judges.”

The officials didn't even bother to bring the fighters back out to the center of the deck. Maybe they thought the two men would go after each other again, or that the sight of them would send the crowd into a full-on riot. “By judges' decision,” the announcer said, then hesitated, “the lowmass semifinal match between Yugo Macha and Carr Luka is declared a draw.”

“A
draw
?” Uncle Polly was apoplectic.

Everyone was shouting. There were too many people on the deck, and not all of them were tethered. A few pushes and shoves sent some of them flying free, colliding into others. The crowd was going nuts. Hundreds were out of their seats now, and every fight caused a chain reaction of people spinning into each other, unable to stop their own momentum, grabbing onto or hitting their neighbors.

“What does that mean?” Carr asked. “How can it be a draw?” Now that he was out of the Cube and no longer fighting, his body was cooling fast and he was feeling all the places Macha had injured him. His chest, his sides, his face—everything hurt.

“Two judges went in his favor, two in yours, and the fifth declared a tie.” Gant shook his head. “This is ugly. Really ugly.”

“I beat him,” Carr shouted. “I had the second round for sure, and he cheated in the third! How is that a draw?”

“Get those fighters back to the locker room!” a security guard yelled at them.

“Go,” Gant said. “I'm going to sort this mess out.”

Carr was ushered toward the hall. The entrance was jammed with reporters and cameramen, everyone talking and shouting questions at once. Scull and Uncle Polly went ahead of him, trying to clear the way and keep people back. Carr pulled himself along the guide-rails in a daze. How was it possible to feel so slow and heavy in weightlessness?

Out of the corner of his eye: a pale Terran face, calm and watchful in the midst of all the excitement. A blond specter. Rhystok.

Carr swiveled his head to try and catch another glimpse of the man as he was tugged along into the bowels of the stadium. Rhystok was standing still, magnetized shoes firmly planted, hands on the rails. His gaze foll
owed Carr before his receding figure was lost behind the media and security people that pressed ahead of him.

Shit. What was he supposed to do now? He certainly couldn't do what Detective Van had asked of him. He couldn't escape this crowd of people, he couldn't get close to Rhystok. Carr looked down at his bare left forearm. He couldn't send the police alert either; Scull still had his cuff. The detective had been right—Rhystok had come all the way to Surya to see him fight, and having done so, perhaps he would now escape. What would happen if he did? Would Van rescind his promise?

I tried,
he imagined himself saying to the detective.

I tried,
to millions of disappointed Terran fans.

They would reply,
Trying isn't good enough for us.

In the locker room, there was relative quiet at least. Several of his fellow zeroboxers who'd seen what happened gathered around, grim-faced and muttering. Scull grabbed more towels and wiped him down. Uncle Polly kept ice on his f
ace, then helped him into a thermal top. Carr winced as he lifted his arms to pull it on, but the garment's heating cells were a relief from the cool air goose-pimpling his skin. Polly was silent as he checked Carr's stitches. His thin lips were set in a deep downward curve that carved his face like a canyon. He was seething, with anger and something else, like guilt or pain. Like his heart was breaking on his face.

“Goddamn domies,” Adri said, scowling, her arms
crossed. “They hate us. As much as we hate them.”

“I don't hate domies,” Carr said quietly, replacing the ice pack on his face with a new one that Scull offered him. He could almost hate Risha for not being there, but he didn't. “I wish I'd had another minute with Macha, though.”