Zeroboxer Read online

  “I just want to thank Jay Ferrano and the ZGFA for putting on a great fight. I’ve got to credit my incredible coach and my cornerman. To my mom and Enzo, back home on Earth—I love you guys.” There were more shouted questions, but DK and Uncle Polly ushered him back to the locker room. Carr barely felt the hallway rungs as he floated out of the crush of people.

  He looped around the room like a drunken bird, bouncing off the banks of lockers and barreling into DK, who whooped and laughed and threw him into a spin. When he pulled out of it, Carr hooked one foot under a toe bar and leaned back, still grinning stupidly as DK helped him out of his gripper shoes and gloves, toweled him down, and placed a squeeze bottle of electrolyte drink in his hand.

  Uncle Polly stood in front of him and leveled a stern finger at his face. “What was that? You were going to stay out of clinch.”

  “He wasn’t falling for it, coach. I couldn’t count on being far enough ahead by the end of the third.”

  “Hell of a risk. He nearly choked you out.”

  “But he didn’t.”

  “Don’t be smart with me. You were impatient to win and you got reckless.”

  “C’mon, Polly,” DK said. “Your boy did good tonight. That knockout is one for the highlight reels.”

  Uncle Polly huffed. Then his tough demeanor fell away as a slow, crooked smile brightened his stubbly face. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, it sure was.” He put his hands on either side of Carr’s face, giving his cheek an approving smack. “Not what I would’ve done, but damn, it worked.”

  Carr relaxed. He didn’t want Uncle Polly unhappy with him. He got dressed and no sooner had he put his cuff back on than it vibrated with dozens of messages. Congratulations from friends and teammates, new subscriber stats, media hits … he touched the screen to queue it all, not planning to deal with it until later, but one high priority message flashed insistently. His cochlear receiver was still messed up; when he tried to play the audio tag, it was shrill and jumbled. He saw who the sender was, though, and his stomach did a small, nervous dive, like the final weak aftershock of an earthquake.

  Uncle Polly was watching him. “Well?”

  Carr looked up and nodded. “The Martian wants to see me.”

  THREE

  The Martian’s name was Bax Gant, and he was the co-owner of the Zero Gravity Fighting Association. His business partner, Terran entertainment industry tycoon Bran Merkel, was the money behind the ZGFA but only occasionally seen on Valtego; Gant managed all the day-to-day operations. He was called “the Martian” because he probably was the best known Martian on a city-station that was still overwhelmingly Terran, but also because, in zeroboxing circles, he was the sort of singularly influential personality who merited a the when spoken about, such as the Bossman or the Bastard. The Martian.

  Carr stood in Gant’s office trying not to look uncomfortable. He’d gone to the clinic for an injection of rehab/repair nanos; between the pricey cell-mending molecules and a dose of ibuprofen, post-fight pain wasn’t his main problem. He’d had his receiver fixed too, and he wasn’t even badly hungover from last night’s after-party. It was just that Bax Gant’s office felt like a walk-in refrigerator. Comfortable for a man from Mars, but not for someone raised in balmy Toronto. Carr imagined that Gant must feel the reverse; the whole rest of Valtego probably felt like a mild steam bath to him. No wonder he seemed to live in his office.

  “Sit down, Luka,” Gant said. “Coffee?”

  Carr was about to decline, then remembered that he had just finished a fight and could eat and drink whatever he wanted to for a while. “Sure, thanks,” he said, sitting down in the chair in front of the desk.

  The last time he’d been in Gant’s office was the day after his sixteenth birthday. Uncle Polly had sat next to him. The Martian had said, “You’re training them from the womb now, are you, Pol?” and then turned a skeptical look on Carr. “The pros aren’t like the ammys, kid. You think you’re ready?” and Carr had said, “Yes, sir,” though he’d been scared. This morning was different. Uncle Polly had cupped Carr’s chin in his hand and said, “You’re not a kid anymore. You’re a pro fighter with a good record, and you’re going to get re-signed or I’ll eat my towel. Now go in there and talk to that domie, man-to-man.”

  Gant filled two mugs from the pot on the counter and walked back to the desk. He was the shortest Martian Carr had ever seen, barely six feet tall. Decades spent in Valtego’s nearly Earth-level artificial gravity had thickened him, rounded him out a little. The faint hint of red in his hair suggested some European ancestry from way, way back. The man could almost pass as Terran, though the telltale sheen of his dark, radiation-resistant skin gave him away.

  He set one of the mugs in front of Carr, slipping a coaster underneath so as not to mar the surface of the mahogany desk. Real mahogany wood, not synthetic. There was a lot of wood in the room—the desk and chairs, the floor, the shelves that held mementos and photos from big fights Gant had promoted. Precious few non-agricultural trees grew on Mars; the man had a borderline obsession with furniture and objects made from natural materials. Behind his desk was a bamboo-framed watercolor print of Olympus Mons at sunset.

  “Nice painting,” Carr said. “Have you been there?”

  “I’m from Tharsis,” Gant said, sitting down across from him. “Never appreciated the view until I left.”

  “Nice place?”

  “Used to be. Crowded now. Too many tourists.” Gant snorted at this irony, and Carr wondered what passed for crowded on a planet with a fraction of Earth’s population.

  The Martian drank from his mug and studied Carr from across the desk. Carr lifted his chin. He could have had his bruised face and swollen jaw fixed up at the clinic, but it was ironclad tradition for zeroboxers to keep their facial wounds for at least a few days—the nastier-looking the better.

  “What’s your story, Luka?” Gant said finally. “Parents were refugees and shipped off-planet? Father was a drunk and used to beat you?”

  Carr shook his head.

  “I didn’t think so. You’re not angry the way some of them are. So why do you fight in the Cube?”

  Carr shrugged. “I’m good at it.”

  “Hmm. After last night, I don’t suppose I can disagree. Five-one; not too shabby for a guy born on soil.”

  “The ‘one’ got away from me.”

  “That’s what they always say.” Gant leaned forward onto his desk with folded arms. “What did you think of the crowd last night?”

  “It was big.”

  Gant nodded, pleased. “Sold-out stadium, and millions more watching on the Systemnet.” He jerked his head back toward the painting behind his desk. “I left Mars twenty-five years ago, saying I was going to grow the sport with Terrans. I was practically laughed off the Red Planet. All the best zeroboxers in the Martian system, the top dogs in the Weightless Combat Championship, you know what they said to me? ‘Everyone on the old planet is a planet rat. The most daring and inventive Terrans left generations ago to build Mars and the other settlements. Why would a place with countless gravity-dependent sports want anything different? Zeroboxing’ll never catch on.’”

  Carr took a swallow of strong coffee. “Guess they were wrong.”

  “Guess so.” Gant jutted his lower jaw slightly forward as he sized Carr up like a buyer considering an item at auction. Carr did his best to wait without fidgeting, without thinking too much about how his future depended on coming down on the good side of this man’s ruthless business acumen. Whether you loved or hated the Martian was largely correlated with how useful he thought you were.

  Gant picked up his thinscreen and tapped it. “Have you looked at your subscriber stats or media hits?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Good; if your head gets too inflated, you might get the mistaken idea you can weasel a better deal out of me.” He handed the screen to Carr. “Thi
s is what you’ve been waiting for.”

  Carr took the screen, suddenly glad that the meat-locker temperature kept his hands from sweating. He read the new contract quickly, then read it again, his eyes lingering on all the key numbers. His heart began to dance a jig in his chest. Three years and ten more fights guaranteed, his pay starting close to double what he’d made on his first six matches and rising steadily if he won. He’d thought Gant might low-ball and make him negotiate, but this was more than Uncle Polly had told him to expect.

  His hand hovered over the fingerprint signature box, not quite believing his fortune.

  “Show it to whoever you need to—your coach, your lawyer—but I’m not going to bullshit you: it’s a good deal.”

  Carr pressed his finger to the screen, waited for the confirmation, and handed it back to Gant. “Thank you. Really.” His voice had gone a little squeaky; he cleared his throat. “This is what I want to do. What I’ve always wanted to do.”

  “Your contract isn’t a payout. It’s an investment,” Gant said. “The ZGFA’s investment in you. Don’t think for a second this means you’ve made it, that you don’t have to train your ass off harder than ever to keep putting on a good show in the Cube.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Good. Because there are a hundred guys out there who would eat each other alive to take your place.” Gant smiled, not in a cruel way, just that’s the way it is. “One other thing. You’re getting a brandhelm.”

  Carr’s eyebrows furrowed. Marquee athletes had brandhelms, of course, and so did every other famous person from celebrity chefs to CEOs, but Carr was less than a couple of years into a pro career. “I can’t afford a brandhelm,” he said. “I mean, the deal is fine, but it’s not like I’ve got extra cash right now.”

  “It’s your lucky day then,” said the Martian. “Merkel Media Corporation hired heavy on the marketing side and Bran has me convinced we should use the extra manpower up here, promoting our up-and-coming zeroboxers. I’m assigning someone to you.” He drummed his blunt-nailed fingers on the desk. “Like I said, an investment. Just to be clear, I don’t do this for every hotshot who comes into my office for his first contract renewal.”

  “No sir.”

  Gant stood up and Carr stood with him. They shook hands, Carr’s fingers numb with cold, Gant’s warm and fleshy.

  Do it, Carr urged himself. He had somehow, miraculously, made it into the Martian’s good books, at least for now. Go on. Say it. “Another thing,” he said. “Jay Ferrano was the third-ranked lowmass zeroboxer. Now I am.” He steeled his gaze. “I want to fight for the title.”

  The Martian grunted. “Every fighter who’s ever been in here has given me that line. They all have the same dream that you do. Some of them I bet big on—the way I just bet on you—and they never lived up to their promise.” He eyed Carr, calculating. “You’re not special, Luka. Not yet.”

  FOUR

  For the next few days, Carr slept late, indulged in favorite foods (key lime pie from that little café next to the Infinity Grand Hotel—sublime, the best in orbit), returned messages of congratulations, and strode about light with relief that he wasn’t going to be shipped back to Earth as a failure.

  “Oh man, that fight was STELLAR!” Enzo said when he called. “I’ve watched it eight times. You know what’s funny? Even though I know you won, when I get to that part right near the end, I always feel really worried for a few seconds.”

  “But just a few.”

  “Like three or four seconds.”

  Carr shook his head, awed by the boy’s faith. When he’d met Enzo three and a half years ago, the kid had been lying on his back in a weed-choked patch of dirt, his face bruised half purple, shouting and wheezing and swiping for the inhaler that the bigger boy sitting on his chest was waving over his head, just out of reach. After Carr had hauled off the asshole and sent him and his friends home with a promise to make them pee blood the next time he saw them, he squatted down by Enzo and held out the small device, shaking it curiously.

  “What is this thing?” he asked.

  The boy gasped for breath, high and shrill like a puppy being strangled. He took the inhaler from Carr and sucked on it furiously until he was better. “It’s for my asthma,” he said, wiping muddy tears from his face.

  “Asthma?” Carr made an incredulous face and the boy dropped his puffy eyes to the ground between his toes. Who in this part of the world still had a defunct genetic disease like asthma? Only people with parents too poor to afford even the most basic gene therapy but irresponsible enough to have kids anyways. Low, even by the standards of their neighborhood. School boys would go after such a glaring mark of weakness like hyenas after a lame zebra.

  “I’d keep that thing hidden if I were you,” Carr said, with the sage wisdom of his fourteen years at the time. “And next time a bigger kid starts to knock you down, drop to the ground and roll away from him. If he sits on your chest you’re in bad shape, little man. You’ve got to tuck your chin, keep your hands up, and buck your hips hard, like this, see? When he goes forward, roll on top of him fast and nail him a few good ones in the face. With your fist or your elbow. Got it?”

  That was how Carr had picked up a short, talkative, seven-year-old shadow. He didn’t mind. He liked it, actually. He didn’t have any friends outside of the gym, and in the gym, he was always the youngest at his level. Years ago, he’d begged his mom for a little brother; he’d show him the ropes, look out for him, he promised. Of course, she’d said no. After Carr’s gym and tournament expenses, they couldn’t afford a pet much less another kid. “You’re it for me, darling,” she said. “All my eggs in one basket, you could say,” and giggled at her own joke. So Enzo was as close as Carr got. And Enzo was funny and clever, even if he had bum lungs.

  Most important of all: the kid was a rabid zeroboxing fan. He made Carr recount the entire match against Jay Ferrano, in blow-by-blow detail, twice through before Carr ended the call to let him run off to school.

  In a properly good mood, Carr called his mom. “Hi, Mom,” he said when she answered. “I won my fight. I have a new contract now, a good one. Three years and ten matches.”

  “That’s super, darling,” she said. “Good for you.”

  Carr didn’t ask her if she’d watched the fight. Sometimes she did (“That was a good one,” she’d say), sometimes she didn’t (“Oh, you’ve had so many, it’s hard to keep them all straight—was it the one against that big fellow?”). The truth of it was, he found it excruciating to talk to his mom about zeroboxing. She was always vaguely proud, distantly and unwaveringly supportive, but her interest and knowledge never went much beyond whether he’d won, whether he’d been hurt, and how much money he’d made.

  Instead he asked, “How are you doing?”

  “Oh, you know me.” She laughed. She had a girlish laugh, like bursting soap bubbles. “The same as always.” Despite this assertion, she continued, “Ginnie, she was a regular, she moved away to Scarborough so I don’t see her anymore. And they’re taking down those ugly old buildings by the waterfront, so the route has changed and I have two new stops … ”

  Sally Luka worked for the Toronto Transit Commission as a bus attendant. It was an utterly superfluous job because the TTC’s artificial intelligence system handled all the routing and driving, but the union had managed to preserve the high seniority bus attendant jobs. They argued that people liked to have real humans to greet them, announce their stops, and answer questions if they had any. If they did, Sally would consult the AI, which is what the passenger would simply do themselves if there wasn’t a live attendant. Carr’s mom had been in her job for twenty-five years. It amazed Carr that she managed to have something inconsequential to say about it every time he spoke to her.

  He loved his mom, most of the time, but sometimes he wondered how they could be related.

  After he finished talking to her, he sigh
ed in relief and ate a slice of key lime pie. Then he took a look at the money he’d won from the Ferrano fight. He paid overdue rent and bills, stashed away enough to get through the next several months, then transferred the rest to his mom’s account. She didn’t ask for money, not exactly, but growing up, the lack of it in their lives had been as palpable as a third, ugly family member. So the way it worked now was: she would mention something about the cost of personal data usage going up, he would send money without telling her, she would never acknowledge it, and he never expected her to.

  By the fourth day after the fight, Carr was restless. After they’d celebrated the new contract with a trip to Bubbity’s all-you-can-eat buffet (where You’re Not Gaining Weight If You’re In Space! ), Uncle Polly had told him to take ten days off to let the nanos purge themselves from his body and his bones fully re-mineralize. To Carr, the time felt more like a prison sentence than a vacation. He was most at ease when training hard for an upcoming match. Without one to fixate on, he felt himself sliding into unproductive apathy, which he loathed. He had no interest in or money for the touristy Valtego activities, and while spending a whole day in his apartment playing holovid games or watching Lunar sitcoms (Lunar humor was uniquely, scathingly dark) was a guilty pleasure at first, it made him feel gross, like one of the vacationing planet rats, willingly and constantly trapped in artificial gravity.

  Luckily, DK had a fight against Titus “Scorpion” Stockton next month, and Carr had a role as his friend’s cornerman to give him something to focus on. DK was all smiles to see him when he showed up at the ZGFA’s land-training gym. If DK ever felt nervous against a tough opponent like the Scorpion, it manifested itself as cheerful bravado leading into the final weeks.