THE VENGEANCE

I cracked my knuckles and stepped forward, my arms raised. More of a signal to my opponent that I wasn’t giving up than an earnest attempt to attack. He still easily dodged out of the way, but my clawing hand caught hold of the edge of his sleeve for just a moment – he was slowing down. He knew it. I knew it.
We circled for what felt like an age, until Darling Woodsey, who I had almost forgotten was still watching, shouted “Somebody kill somebody already!” and threw a loaf of bread into the ring, forgetting that we weren’t starved villagers who could be driven into a frenzy that easily.
The quick man was in danger of getting careless. He only had so long to finish this before I outlasted him completely. Now was my time to strike. I swung wide, letting my fist drag through the air as if through water, drawing him in like a fish on a line. Then, without looking at all, even giving a hint of my intentions, I drove forward with my left when he ducked in to deliver another gasping combo to my ribs. I felt the punch connect with shattering force, and he flew backwards, feet scraping in the sand.
“I’ll kill you!” he screamed, the first time I had heard him say a word. He leapt into the air and instinctually I dropped down. As he flew over my head, I reached up and grabbed the man out of the air, held him aloft for a second, and then let him fall straight down onto his back. He lay there, groaning and trying to push himself up on his elbows while Woodsey watched in amusement.
After a while, he began to applaud. “Very nice! Normally very few can stand up to the agile combat style of Nolko for more than a minute. I certainly wouldn’t have pegged you for one of them,” he said. I didn’t ask whether Nolko was the man or the martial art. It didn’t seem relevant.

The man who might have been Nolko was helped to his feet by two other toughs and limped away, supported between them. Woodsey beckoned to me again, and again I scrambled up into the box and sat down beside him.

Some weeks passed. Woodsey became my champion among the widespread circles of the Family, while I became his in the ring. He was endlessly fascinated by combat, though he didn’t have any aptitude in it himself. One day, after a fight in which I had broken the arm of a thug from a distant city, I was invited to the back room of the gambling house, where Woodsey was sat on a low couch with a glass of something that fizzed audibly.
“Come in,” he said, and beckoned me sit down. “I have an important matter to discuss with you.” I sat. Nothing good came from disobeying, as I had well seen many times before with him. He offered a glass to me which was brimming with the same bubbling drink. I accepted it, and took a sip. It had a sweet aroma that almost covered the heavy, thudding taste of the narcotic core of the drink. This was the Zust, the choice export of the Families. Evidently Woodsey had made a habit of it. I drank a little more, and felt my head sway.
“Heavy stuff, right?” he said, a toothy grin splitting his face across. It seemed to gain more teeth when I could only nod, and that after some deliberation. “You see, Dan,” (he had taken to referring to me exclusively by that name) “You see. I’m a rational thinker. I do things that are empirically backed by logic.” He hiccuped, and then gurgled “Dialectics,” for apparently no reason.
“What…” I shook my head, trying to clear some of the thick fog from my skull and only succeeding in making it swirl like milk in coffee. “What did you want to discuss?”
“You’re a sstrogn fighter,” said Woodsey, slurring. I nodded.
“I know,” I said, and he laughed.
“I’m irrational thinker. I do imperialistical things to logs. I think. Anyway, you’re my latest log, Dan. You see?”
He went on like that for some time before reaching his point which, expressed as labouriously as it was, I almost missed. That point was that even as addled as he was, he could see that I was wasted on the little village arena. Not least of his concerns was that he would soon be running out of his own men willing to face me.

So it was that I found myself in a syntho-backed armchair on a cruiser laden to the nines heading for the astrobase that hovered at the heart of the Gilberts Asteroid Belt (‘keeps up Gilbert’s Asteroid Trousers!’). Periodically an attendant wandered over to offer me drinks or cigars while I sat quietly on the observation deck. I hadn’t been this far afield in my entire life. I was further from my parents’ graves than I had ever been before. I watched the stars. Then, when it came into view – a distant, winking glowing spot too small to be a star – I watched the astrobase as it gradually came closer and grew into a massive, ovoid cityscape that stuck out in all directions around the central gravitic warp. It was like Metro writ on a canvas larger than any I could have conceived of in those days, all neon and dangerous colours, and I could almost smell the harsh, cold, recirculated air before I set foot on it.

A big sweating man pumped my hand enthusiastically when I got off the cruiser and led me to a car. Inside was a compartment with floor-to-ceiling carpet and two wine glasses, empty at that moment. The man nodded to me and poured a couple of drinks which I regarded with some suspicion until he reassured me: “It’s just wine. Don’t worry.” He turned around and directed the driver to take us to the Hotel Ido at once. “So you’re the Red Baron of the Dym River Arena, then. Darling’s latest squeeze,” he said. I nodded, unsure of whether to smile. “Well, you aren’t fighting starving kids and exiles out here, so take any dreams you might have had about an easy life and shove them. Do I make myself clear?”
“Perfectly,” I said.
“The mask,” he went on. “If you don’t mind me asking, is that an affectation? Or is it medical? Because it’s a bit off-putting, is all. Kiddies and women might not take to it.”
“Kids?” I said, cocking my head to one side quizzically. He sighed.
“Darling didn’t tell you, did he? Well. The audience out here is a little… meatier than you’re used to.”

The crowd roared below. A little meatier, it turned out, meant a stadium of ten thousand capacity filled out to the rafters. Men with signs saying “KILLER” and “SLAY”, families with brawling kids acting out their own little arena in the stairwells, kids with binoculars and notebooks keeping records of their favourite fighters’ greatest moments. I looked down on them from on high, in a glass box that overlooked the arena, one of four. I watched from one to the next to the next as the fighters squared off four stories below us.
“You want some action?” I muttered as I spied Argento sat in a low chair, a woman in scant clothing by his side, her body covered in wisps by strips of acid green fabric. Something stirred inside my chest when I recognised her. It was Hate.

“Hey!” said a guard as I strode around the circular passageway to Argento’s box. “You can’t be here!” He tried to follow me, which he could only manage at a flailing half-jog.
“Can’t or shouldn’t?” I said, and when he stopped to answer I hit him so hard his ears bled.

“You’re that mystery man from Dym River, aren’t you?” said Beca, and it burned that she didn’t see me through the mask.
“I’m here to see Argento,” I said. Then she recognised me.
“Togan? What have they done to you?” she said, reaching for my mask. I flinched, but all she did was stroke my cheek. I felt it through the fabric as though it wasn’t there. The sensation, the gentleness after so long with only violence was too much to bear.

“Who are you?” said the bald man with a sneer. “Go fetch me another, would you?” He tried to hand me his glass. “Well? Take the damn glass!”
It smashed against the wall of the box that faced out onto the battle below. Argento took a second to realise what had happened. “You clumsy ass!” he grunted, turning to face me for the first time. His eyes met my blank masked gaze and he froze. I think deep down somewhere in that wet little pig brain of his he knew, though I had no way of telling.
“W- where’s Beca?” he said. I answered him with a quick, sharp movement. His scream was buried by the sound of shattering glass.

Oh- oh my god!!! He’s fallen from the VIP Box!!!