Chapter 22 #2
As the fighters circle each other, the crowd starts calling out bets.
Oro1 shouts what sounds like an obscene number.
Above the ring, a screen displays the odds and appears to be recording the wagers as they’re entered.
He glances around for who might be doing this when he realizes the betting system must recognize their voices and somehow connect it to their account. Fascinating.
James senses his own adrenaline rising to match the energy of the room.
In the ring, the red-haired woman cries out.
Her blood sprays across the mat as the other contestant’s left fist connects with her jaw.
The displayed prize money figure doubles.
As he scans the crowd, he can pick out the signature of wealth.
If he had to guess, the majority of these people live in A or B Quadrant.
A thud draws his attention back to the ring. The red-haired woman apparently rallied. She stands over the other unconscious woman with her fists raised high. Once the white-haired woman comes to, they are escorted out of the ring.
James pats Oro1 on the shoulder. “You’ll win the next one.”
Up next is a man wearing a minuscule pair of lime green shorts and a full body tattoo that makes him resemble a giant gray lizard.
When the close-up of his face appears on a particle pane, James can make out little slitted pupils.
Another man steps into the ring and with the asinine way he’s grinning, James is certain he’s a manupartner.
Once the announcer finishes, the fight begins.
“I have an idea,” he says to Oro1. “Just go with it.”
“Wait, where are you going?” Oro1 asks.
“I took boxing lessons as a teenager.” When Oro1’s brow quirks incredulously, he says, “It’s excellent exercise and, unfortunately for me, it’s the only transferable skill I’ve discovered. I’ve got to start making money somehow.”
Oro1 groans. “You sure you want to do this?” When James continues making his way down the aisle, he hears the other man grumble, “Kate is going to kill me.”
James makes his way down to the pit, where the ringmaster has taken a seat to watch the fight.
As he approaches, the man’s attention moves from his tablet, which displays a ledger of participants, to James.
The man’s gaze sweeps over his physique, then his dumb manupartner expression.
He rewards James with a huge, greedy grin. “May I help you?”
James leans in. “My owner wants to watch me fight. That’s him right there.” He points to Oro1 and blows him a kiss. In response, Oro1 catches it out of the air and brings it to his chest. James bites back a laugh. “How do I sign up?”
The ringmaster gives a knowing chuckle as he taps at his screen. “Let me see what I can do to move you up the list.”
Half an hour later, a club escort kindly helps James sign up for an Off-the-Books Boxing account, and even shows him several reputable platforms for a Blackmarks account and how to link it when he asks. Thankfully, they’re not paying enough attention to know or care if he’s a manupartner.
Once official, James changes into an outfit from the costume closet, which amounts to a pair of traditional silk black shorts that almost hang to his knees and a pair of matching lace-up boxing boots.
He assesses himself in the mirror. It is so surreal he considers backing out for a moment.
But he can’t let himself. Focusing on the money he’s earning, he steps into the ring.
The overhead cameras zoom in on his face, focusing on his nose.
He gives the crowd a winning smile before turning to assess his opponent.
If only his old coach, Jimmy, could see him now.
Across the ring, a man with long blond hair tied at his neck sits, seeming to have raided the costume closet in favor of a fitted leopard-printed wrestling-style singlet. He’s got whiskers either drawn or tattooed on his cheeks. If James can’t beat this guy, he deserves to lose.
The ringmaster calls them to step to the center of the ring. When the bell for round one rings, James springs into action, assessing his opponent with a quick jab-jab-cross combination. The man dodges the first punch, but James’s fist catches his jaw.
They break apart for a second, but this time the man comes back with a combo of his own, landing a hit that splits the corner of James’s lip.
As the metallic taste of blood fills his mouth, his adrenaline spikes.
For the first time since being in this world, he feels like he has a little control.
Like he stepped into a boardroom where he knows the outcome before he opens his mouth.
The deal is already sealed. He only needs to execute his plan.
It only takes him three rounds for the blond man’s guard to slip enough to get the knockout.
He finds Oro1 in the stands, who is cheering loudly along with the rest of the crowd.
Oro1 returns the blown kiss from earlier, which the cameras love.
When James smiles, his amusement is genuine.
The future is fucking weird, but at least he’s having fun. And making money.
After he leaves the ring, he’s escorted to the medical room. While he’s waiting on the physician to treat his opponent, they schedule him for two more fights and tell him he’s welcome back the following week.
Finally, he’s called into the room. A woman wearing an iridescent blue lab coat that looks like it came from the adult section of a Halloween shop directs him to an exam table. “Sit,” she says.
Her face is open, set off with deep, discerning eyes. Her mid-tone olive skin contrasts nicely with her straight, presumably box-dyed blonde hair that is cropped so close to her head it’s almost a buzz cut. Like everyone in the future, the woman paints a striking image.
She pulls out a light from her pocket, then unceremoniously uses her other hand to hold open his eyelid, preventing him from wincing, as she shines the light into his eye. She quickly does the other eye and when she’s finished, he shakes his head, forgetting himself for a moment. “Fuck.”
The word draws her attention. They stare at each other for a moment before he remembers to put on a dumb grin. She goes about patching up the minor cut on his lip, and he tries not to react to the discomfort.
“I’ll fix this and any other cuts you have more permanently after you’re done for the night. Unless your owner prefers you to keep them?” she asks.
“He prefers them mended,” James replies, curious about the technology she’s using.
When she finishes his lip, she taps his nose. “And this? Is it from fighting?”
He represses a wince. Maybe if he kept his cut, his crooked nose would make more sense, but he was concerned about what Kate would think. “Yes,” he says, since it seems like the only reasonable explanation. He figures the less he speaks, the better.
“Funny, because they would have sent you to me for a fracture like this, even if it wasn’t my night.
I don’t remember treating you, and if I had, I certainly wouldn’t have done such shoddy work.
” She retrieves a tablet and before he can protest, she has it pointed at his face.
“I’m just going to take an image to verify it was like that before I treated you. ”
“But you already fixed my lip,” he protests.
“There would be residual bruises and swelling for a break like that,” she says matter-of-factly. The way she’s studying him makes his arm hairs prickle.
James scrambles for a way to explain why a manupartner like him has an old injury like his. Maybe the boxing club wasn’t such a good idea.
But then one of the escorts pops her head in the door. “The last fight just ended, and one contestant is bleeding pretty bad.” She inclines her head to James, meaning to clear the room.
The physician stands. “We’re done here.” She motions for him to leave, which he does. Quickly.
James beats his next opponent in four full three-minute rounds with a unanimous decision by Judge Master, a boxing analyzation software which he learns has replaced the human judges.
Apparently, the point of the shorter matches is to provide the crowd with plenty of matches to bet on.
Plus, it means fighters can enter up to three fights each night.
Probably has something to do with the crowd’s limited attention spans, too.
James’s escort helps him under the ropes and to his corner. The crowd goes wild, and he turns to see what the commotion is about right as his opponent steps into the ring.
Fuck, it’s the Lizard Man.
The fight, which he loses, goes by in a blur. At least the Lizard Man didn’t get the knockout.
“Back again so soon?” the physician asks. Her name, he’s overhead, is Sable.
“I fought the Lizard Man,” James replies, remembering to put on a placid grin. His head is still spinning from the loss, and he’s being careless, but he can already feel his eye swelling.
Sable walks over and closes the outside door, which makes his stomach pitch. When she turns back to him, she cocks her head and studies him for a long moment. “You can cut the manupartner shit.”
She holds up the tablet, which displays side-by-side images of him. One is the picture she just took. The other is the shot from an interview he did a few years before he died. It’s like she’s dumped a bucket of ice over his head. His mouth opens, but he can’t seem to find the words.
“Facial recognition software. Plus, I’m one of GROW’s lead technicians. I’m around manupartners all day long, and it is quite obvious you aren’t one,” she calmly explains, as if she hadn’t dropped the most terrifying and threatening piece of information he’s heard since waking up.
James rubs his clammy palms on his shorts. “I’m here because my owner—”
Sable laughs, which cuts him short. When she recovers, she says, “Don’t worry. I have no interest in turning you in. I only caught the whiff of an opportunity when I looked you up and read a little about what you did in your time.”
“An opportunity?” His blood hums.
“You were an entrepreneur.” Her tone is matter of fact and he isn’t sure what level of alarm he should be feeling. James never had to do anything illegal before, but now he’s not even legal, so he has no choice.
“I won’t be manipulated,” he bluffs. But clearly, he’s in no position to haggle with this woman if she decides to extort him. His nerves fire as he eyes the door, briefly considering running. That didn’t go well last time he tried it, so his best bet is to talk his way out of this. Reason with her.
Seeming to sense his wheels turning, she says, “You’re worrying over nothing. I just work there. I haven’t decided how I feel about our current batch of errors yet. I’ll have to think about how we can use this to our advantage.” Her presumptuous words and calculating grin make his stomach twist.
“Our advantage?” he asks, equally intrigued and terrified.
She shrugs as she holds a little medical device up to his banged-up face. His face heats under the light it emits, and he has the urge to jerk away, but he holds still.
“Yes, our. Unless the several articles I skimmed about you incorrectly depicted your capacity?” She raises a brow, smirking in challenge.
His pride makes it impossible to resist defending himself. “They weren’t wrong.”
“Good. I only do this once a week for the Blackmarks. I should be running my department, at minimum,” she grumbles.
“At least until I can invent something.” Then she narrows her eyes at him.
“You’re here for the same reason, are you not?
” When he doesn’t disagree, she continues.
“It’s easy enough to surmise. You’ll soon discover that the payout for the fighters doesn’t go as far as you’re probably imagining. ”
She hands him a mirror, letting him survey his nearly unblemished face. “Those bruises will fade in a day or two. Otherwise you should be good as new. Next time, avoid the Lizard Man. He never loses.”
“I’ll try,” he says, as if he’ll have a choice who they pair him against.
There’s a knock at the door. His signal that his time with the physician is up.
“If I come up with any ideas of how we can capitalize on our unique opportunity,” she says, waving a hand at his general person, “I’ll message you.”
James paces to the door, feeling a little untethered by this strange, somewhat cold woman. “But you don’t have my contact information.”
They size each other up while his hand rests upon the doorknob.
He senses they share a common trait: drive.
But he has no idea what her motivations are besides running her department at GROW.
Even if she is a threat, there really isn’t anything he can do about it now.
She knows that he’s been, in a way, reincarnated.
But if they are similar—even a little—then maybe there’s an opportunity, like she suggested.
In that case, he’ll think about it too. And try not to get a crick in his neck from looking over his shoulder.
There’s a catlike cunning about her as she says, “I’ll have your contact information before you know it. See you next week.”
“You’re kind of terrifying,” he says.
Her grin widens. “I’ve been told that before.”