Instincts that could make one careless.
And if you couldn’t learn from the champion, who could you learn from?
Chai waited for the right punch, waited to shift his weight hard left when he felt Korak lean forward ...
• • •
“This is insane, Chick, the ref has to stop this!”
“Chai is defending himself, I tell you! He’s still in this!”
“The champ is raining down blows! This is an abomination. A right, a left, another rig-”
“North twisted his hips in mid-punch! Korak falls to his right, but he’s back up on top!”
“North is scooting his hips to the right, sliding across his back, he’s got a little space, but Korak is matching it. North is almost at the fence, and then he’ll have nowhere to go ...
• • •
Korak kept shifting, trying to stay on top of North, who scooted his hips to the side, moving strong despite being on his back and at a total disadvantage. Two more shifts and North would hit the fence, then Korak would finish it.
• • •
In the moments that followed, Chaiyal “The Heretic” North realized he didn’t just eat pain.
He worshipped it.
For years, pain had been his god. And now, pain was his savior.
He scootched to the right one more time. Against lesser foes, that would have got him out of trouble, but Korak was too good, too experienced, the champ’s superior balance and reaction time able to keep up. But Chai didn’t want to get away. He just wanted a chance to bring his broken leg up.
He reached the fence. With his last inch of space, he shifted and raised his leg high until his heel landed in the chain-link fence. Flat on his back, Chai felt a 382-pound killing machine settle in on top of him, trying to finish him. His right leg was straight, his heel caught in the chain link.
It was the worst possible position for any fighter.
But Chai wasn’t just any fighter.
He was the best.
Chai brought his right fist up high ...
• • •
“No way,” Marcus said. “That shucker is crazy.”
Vikor didn’t have time to voice his agreement.
• • •
Korak had him. Chai had nowhere left to go. Korak adjusted his balance, keeping his weight on Chai, not letting him free. Korak’s giant middle fists came up.
Then Korak felt Chai’s weight shift again ...
... and he heard it.
• • •
“What the hell?”
“Chaiyal North just broke his own knee!”
“Oh, my High One, there’s the bone again, it’s worse than before, he’s grabbing it ...
• • •
Pain like nothing Chai ever felt before, but pain is the currency of glory. Chai didn’t have to see, because he could feel, because he knew where every part of his body was at all times.
Even the broken parts.
• • •
That last moment stretched to infinity. Korak’s brain processed the information, he felt the balance, heard the sound, and he knew what was coming. Even though it all lasted a fraction of a second, it seemed a lifetime in which he was trapped, in which he might have reacted in time if he could have believed what was happening ... or maybe he just couldn’t will his aging body to react fast enough.
The jagged fibia punched into his side, missing the original hole but driving far deeper the second time. Chai twisted, behind the bone. Through the volcano of agony, Korak heard a snap, felt the bone slide out.
But not all of it.
Something was still inside, ripping at his innards, piercing something rather important, judging by the way his body stiffened and lurched all on its own. Shocking agony ripped across him, filled his brain. It couldn’t feel any worse.
And then Korak’s body abandoned him.
It was like being in the corner-throne, when Timmy shut down his nervous system, except Timmy had the courtesy to also shut down the pain. Chai had not been quite so generous.
Korak the Cutter, the heavyweight champion of the galaxy, fell to his back on an Octagon canvas already tacky with cold, wet blood. He lay there, unable to move his legs at all.
He was paralyzed.
Chaiyal North appeared in Korak’s vision. The Human’s face was unrecognizable, a horror-holo parody of a man, raw flesh with dark red and bits of unknown white sticking out. His left eye had swollen shut, and his obscenely swollen left cheek looked higher than the left.
It was over. They both knew it. Chai had won.
So this was what it felt like to be defeated ...
Chai closed in, eyes to eye, and whispered?
“Now?”
Korak only had to think for a moment. He had his chance to win, but he’d been unable to close out the fight. The Human had done something impossible, used his own broken body as a lethal weapon.
Chaiyal North hadn’t been given the title.
But he sure as hell had taken it.
The torch was passed, and to a true fighter. Korak’s time had come.
He stared into the Human’s one open eye, finding it pleasingly ironic that now Chai had one eye just like a true Warrior, and then Korak spoke.
“Yes,” he said. “Now.”
Another pain, in his chest this time, horrifying, and the end and redeeming, and the end and what came next? And glory.
Chaiyal North’s hand punched through the fresh chitin weld and slid into the flesh beneath.
• • •
Chai sensed the big Ki ref bearing down. He had to make it quick. He pushed his hand deeper into Korak’s hot flesh, fingers scraping by some internal skeletal structure, until they found the pumping heart.
His fingers closed around the tubular organ.
That’s when he felt the stabbing pain at the base of his thumb.
• • •
“No! High one, no!”
“The Heretic is killing the Cutter! The ref is trying to pull him off!”
“Wait, North is going into spasms. What’s happening down there?”
• • •
From his spot twenty feet up in Korak’s ring throne, Doc Patah watched. He wanted to look away but could not. During the gunshot surgery the night before, he’d done as Gredok had told him — placed a tiny, spring-loaded needle next to Korak’s heart. The only way the needle could swing was out, and the only way it could trigger was if something squeezed Korak’s heart.
Doc Patah had thought the odds of that set of circumstances to be ridiculously low. Now, after seeing all the pieces finally come into play, after realizing the gunshots had been a planned setup, a charade orchestrated to give Doc the opportunity to do open-heart surgery and place the needle, only then did Doc finally understood that Gredok had known the end game all along.
“I’m sorry, Chaiyal,” Doc said.
He would miss Korak terribly, but to see The Heretic come this far, to use his own bone as a weapon, to stab his foe with it and break it off inside that foe, to fight so bravely, only to have victory snatched away.
Doc forced himself to watch as the poison took effect.
• • •
“Chick, it looks like North is having a seizure of some kind! What happened?”
“Just look at him, Masara! He’s mangled! Maybe it was too much for his system!”
“Chick, wait, I’m watching the biofeedback monitors ... both fighters have flatlined! Both fighters are dead!”
“Fight staff are flooding the ring, Masara. They are trying to resuscitate North and Korak. Neither seems to be moving, but it’s hard to see the bodies beneath that mass of sentience.
“Chick, if both fighters die, what happens?”
“Well, Masara, this is a violent sport, and there is a rule for that. If the ref didn’t stop the fight ... did he stop the fight? Did I miss it?”
“No, Chick, he did not stop the fight.”
“Well, then, as morbid as it is, t
he fighter to die last wins.”
“Chick, the producers are looking at the playback now. Can we get those flatlines on the screen for the viewers at home? Yes, here it comes now. Here’s the last fifteen seconds of the fight. You can see Korak’s heart rate was erratic, he’s was in trouble. Chai’s heart rate was barely elevated!”
“He’s got ice water running through his veins, Masara. Or he had ice water.”
“Wait, what’s this ... there! Freeze the playback! Chick, look at the readout! Chaiyal North’s heart stopped two-point-five seconds before Korak’s did!”
“Well, Masara, the fight is clearly over, and the IFA officials will have to give an official ruling, but as I understand it, Korak the Cutter is the winner. We will mourn their passing, of course, but we have to report the facts, and the facts are that Korak the Cutter’s record will go to forty-seven-and-oh. We’re still getting no vital signs from him.”
“Such a tragedy, Chick, for such a phenomenal fight.”
“Truly, Masara. I think we have to take a moment to reflect on the fact that Korak the Cutter died undefeated, he died a champion, he died the greatest fighter in the history of the galaxy.”
• • •
In another luxury box, a black-furred Quyth Leader sat quietly and watched the chaos in the ring. He watched the holotanks, both the broadcast and the one that measured his betting receipts.
Down in the ring, he looked for and spotted the IFA officials. They were checking both bodies, trying to wedge in among the medical staff and racks of emergency gear that had suddenly descended. Whereas the prefight madness had been pure violence, restrained rage, now the Octagon filled with a tense calm. Even the arena crowd stayed quiet, waiting for news.
The Leader continued to watch the betting results.
An official leaned in to look at Korak’s body. Then he stood. Two other officials clustered around him. They huddled, looking much like football officials reviewing a play. Then the first official pulled a small black box out of his pocket. The Leader quickly looked to a holotank that showed a ring close-up. The official’s box had two buttons — one in black, one in red.
He punched the black button.
The Leader turned to view the betting results just before the readout on that holotank changed.
He knew exactly how many credits he’d make, but it still felt satisfying to see the account grow.
That money would come in handy. Now, the Leader had enough to sign that huge tight end from Wilson 6. George Starcher would make a fine addition to Quentin Barnes’s receiving targets. And if all it took were the deaths of the galaxy’s two greatest fighters, then that was a small price to pay.
Round Ten: Aftermath
Light. Darkness. Light. Darkness.
Pain.
Not like before, though. Dull. Distant. The pain that leaks through a drug haze, almost like a holosnapshot from someone who’s really visited such a place.
And through it all, the most urgent, screaming demand, the need to know ... had he won?
An electric shock ripped through his body. He felt thick fluid moving against his skin as he twitched and thrashed against restraints. Only now did he realize he was breathing through a tube shoved deep down his throat.
A healing tank.
Dammit, had he won or not?
The light and the darkness, him blinking open crusty eyelids, his one eye looking at the inside of a bandage taped across his face. He reached up to pull it off, but his hands wouldn’t budge. His arms felt ... weaker?
Noise coursed through the gel-like fluid. Cold air exposure began on his forehead, then cascaded down his face. His kneecaps joined, then his chest, then his whole body as it all drained away, leaving a thin film covering him from head to toe.
Wait a minute, missing something, something basic ...
(Had he won? Had he won?)
He was ... alive?
Impossible. He had felt the cold hand of death stop his heart from beating. Felt a chill spread over that most vital muscle, then spread through his chest. It had been an end. It had been a feeling of ... for perhaps the first time in his life ... true peace.
But this wasn’t peace. This was pain. Throbbing, echoing agony. Death couldn’t hurt like this ... only life could.
Chaiyal North finally understood ... he was alive.
Cold water cascaded over him, making him shiver in his nakedness. He had to get up, defend, break out of these restraints. They didn’t feel like they could hold him, but his muscles wouldn’t react, wouldn’t pull hard enough.
Something warm and firm on his face. The pressure in his throat, releasing, something sliding out like hard plastic vomit. Chaiyal gagged and coughed. Some of the healing gel had leaked into his mouth, into his lungs, and now, it shot out onto his wet chin. That warm firmness again, like a snake on his face, and then the covering came off around his temples.
He blinked against the brightness, sight adjusting, trying to take in his situation.
Harsh lights. A mold-speckled, rust-dotted ceiling of a shipping bay. A couple of the lighting rails flickering, or entirely dead. The smell of old cargo. But the healing tank ... it looked brand new. Spotless. Every surface that might touch Chai’s skin gleamed with sterile precision.
Still, he could not move.
A voice from behind him.
“I will let you go, if you promise not to kill me.”
Chai grunted, but only now did he realize he could not promise such a thing. Minutes after accepting the fact that he was indeed alive, Chaiyal was forced to deal with another unexpected truth, every bit as shocking. The weakness ... it wasn’t weakness, it was an absence.
He was a pure Human again. One hundred-percent flesh, blood and bone.
His mods had been removed. Not just the custom pieces installed for the fight, but every ounce of offensive hardware and defensive wetware, every next-gen orthopedic implant and cutting-edge prosthetic replacement; it was all gone. He felt impossibly light and absurdly empty. The pain he felt? He felt all of it for the first time in years because there were no mechanical or digital filters intercepting the neural signals, diluting them from primitive motivation into mere information. This was real pain. If he’d felt like this during the fight, he could have never done the things he did.
The pain took over in full now. Chai didn’t scream, only tensed as if his entire body were gripped in a godlike vice. He might’ve imploded under the pressure, but for the one remaining weapon that could not be removed, his most dangerous bodily armament: his mind.
He regained control, fought for it, almost as though he were imposing his will over each nerve and muscle individually. The pain did not dissipate, but neither did it own him. His body relaxed.
“Let me go now,” he said. “If you don’t, then when I do get out of this, I’ll kill you for sure. At least now you have a chance to live.”
A pause.
“Fair enough.”
He knew that kind of voice. Not Human. What was it?
The restraints let go with a beep, his wrists and chest and ankles simultaneously coming free. Chai sat up. No rush, no panic, if they were going to kill him, they would have just left him dead. He took his time, examining his right knee. Reconstructed. At least somewhat, hard to tell when it was swollen to five times its normal size. It looked funny ... no, everything looked funny.
Because he was seeing with only one eye.
Fingers traced his still-wet face. Left eye socket staunched with organic gauze. Laser-cauterized surgical scars as long as a killing blade crisscrossed his skin everywhere he looked.
He still tasted Korak the Cutter’s blood.
Fluttering movement. Something flying. That’s where he knew that kind of voice, the vocal processor of a Harrah.
And then in front of Chai, out of reach, one of the few Harrah he would recognize — Doc Patah, fight surgeon of Korak the Cutter.
The situation was partially obvious. Patah had somehow taken Chai onto a freighter,
small by the looks of it, probably a smuggler. Dirty, nasty ship, with a space turned into a high-tech field hospital. During the flight, Doc had done extensive surgery on Chai. Must have taken days, if not weeks.
There were a million questions Chai could have asked, questions to which any other being would have demanded answers. Chai, however, was not most beings. He’d already answered most of those questions for himself. When it came down to it, down to the quick, he had only one that seemed relevant at this point.
“Why did you do it?”
Doc Patah didn’t answer right away. “Redemption, I suppose.”
Chai snorted in a show of derision. The act lit his throat and chest on fire and jammed razor-barbed spear tips through his jaw.
“What about Korak? Huh, Doc? Did you redeem yourself to him, too?”
“Korak died undefeated. He’ll live on forever as a singular hero of the Quyth, totally unmatched.”
“Good for him.”
Doc Patah watched him for several moments. The pace of Chai’s breathing began to intensify.
“You won that fight, Chaiyal.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
It was Chai’s turn to pause. “I do now. But I think ol’ Korak knew it before either of us. I saw it in that big peeper of his.”
“It truly was a battle worthy of higher gods. I doubt they’ll ever be another like it.”
“It should’ve been over quicker,” Chai said dismissively. “As slow as he was. I got sentimental, letting the old man get to me.”
“Do you really believe that?” Patah asked, and for a brief moment, Chaiyal became The Heretic once more, flashing Doc a cryptic, almost impish look. It quickly vanished from his cracked, granite features.
Chai stood on weak legs. Still naked, still wet. His words echoed off the empty cargo bay. “Tell me where I’m at.”
“The freighter is called the Big Red. I am not sure why.”
“And where am I going?”
Doc paused, as if the answer were unsavory.