Glitch (11 page)

“Okay, Mr. Toth,” Yancey said. “Let’s get another thing straight. No politics, but none of that talk in the club.”

“All right, all right. These are kids. I forgot. I’m not used to being around such delicate sensibilities.”

Tarean smiled at the quip, looked like he might speak, but bit his tongue.

She could see the man this Nisson might have been. The father was so disgusted by the very notion of illegal-fighting he could barely speak, but his love for Nisson was apparent. The fallen son, for whatever reason, had embraced the dangerous world, though.

“You have several national titles, several international,” she said. “What happened to you?”

He looked down at her, and she thought he might explode. “Well, I’ll be. You’re right, Dad: she’s a spitfire with an attitude and a bit of sand. I like that.” He moved a bit closer to her. “Not to be rude or insensitive, but you’re hard to get a handle on with those bandages and those glasses. You get the retinal lenses, too? You probably use both.” He screwed his face up like he might spit. “I’m a man ahead of his time, Agent Wellborn. That’s what happened to me.”

Tarean stepped forward, as if to interrupt. “Nisson ...”

“No, Pops, uh-uh. She wants to know. I can take it. Might as well let everyone know who they’re involved with.” He glowered at Yancey. “You see, what’s happening here with my pop’s league is what I said would happen. The people want to see illegal fights. I did what I had to do to compete against Zain’s cranked fighters, and I got busted. That’s what happened to me. Two years later, and now they want goddamn exhibition matches with Ragers. Fuck me if I didn’t see that one coming. What do you want, Agent Wellborn, besides the Toth name?”

“Help me help them win.”

He smiled again, as if it were all one big joke and they might sit down and play poker together. “I can do that. I can do that rightly well.” He moved between Hutto and Beasley, as if he might square them up for a fight. “Here’s what it comes down to you two: You harness whatever beasts you got in there, and you let ‘em out, and you let ‘em do their thing, and don’t you feel bad about it. Not one bit. Don’t hold back. Not in the arena.”

Yancey watched the big girl tremble. She would be a challenge. The way Coach Buzz always seemed to look in her direction betrayed his own concern. Hutto beamed like he was being given an early birthday present. Hutto had a chance, a fighting chance for sure, but he would leave the arena a different person.

Nisson clapped his hands and smiled at his discomfited father. “So we’ve got a Werebear and a real live Berserker on our team. I’ll need to see the Ghost, if you don’t mind.”

“She’ll be here soon,” Yancey said. “I was told you’d be a valuable addition to our project.” She looked over at Cliff. “Our intelligence was fuzzy on exactly how, but your father seems to agree.”

Nisson grinned like he’d just eaten someone’s pet canary. “I bought an Alter package. That’s how.”

Tarean Toth cursed, and Nisson Toth continued to smile wickedly.

“Black market, of course,” Yancey said.

“The Consortium doesn’t just give those out.”

“No, they don’t.”

“I bought one and got me a nasty little habit. I guess the best thing to do is show you.”

Yancey raised her hand to stop him, but he’d already begun. “Don’t worry, I’ve got my mindfucker trained like a monkey with a pair of cymbals.”

It only took five or six loud exhalations—that startled everyone in the club—to start the process.

Yancey had some research on Nisson that had proven fruitful: The technicians who’d rigged him up explained they’d given him the easiest triggers out there. According to Nisson’s official (and vague) statement after being arrested, the technicians had put him in touch with a cybershaman who’d taught him the steps; the guy had been a crazmad junkie half zapped on crystal magic. What he’d learned …

Yancey watched the triggers work. Nisson moved with the speed and grace of a champion, even though he no longer was. In two and a half minutes his clothes began to tear.

* * *

Simone poked her head through the tin roof from high up in the struts of the ceiling and watched Hutto’s brother’s slow transformation. As his entity emerged, she remembered that all her old, quaint ideas about Order vs. Chaos and the Lord of Light vs. the Lords of Dark made no sense anymore.

Nisson Toth became a gorgeous, but horrific, blood-red demon-thing a foot taller than his father but not so large he looked inhuman. Foot-long spines ran down his back, with shorter ones along the back of his arms. Two wicked Viking-like horns sprouted from a head armored in some obsidian alloy. His skin was textured like an alligator’s and colored valentine’s red. When he raised his arms so that everyone could see what he’d become, she saw musculature that no normal person had. But he was very much human and looked ready for the arena in greaves, loincloth, codpiece, reinforced waistband, and a pitted and scratched cuirass with holes in the back for his spikes. The cuirass even bore the Toth family sigil of the flaming dragon.

She emerged out of the ceiling and floated to ground level. “How did you summon with armor?”

He swiveled his head her way.

“Simone,” her mother said, “meet—”

“I know. Hutto’s brother. Who looks like he’s figured out a way to slow transform and dress up in fancy clothes at the same time.”

Nisson took a deep breath. “I’m full of surprises.” His voice was now a rumbling baritone.

Hutto threw an overhand right at an invisible opponent and whooped. “Now this is some way-cool, big-time stuff. Nisson, I had no idea!” Another punch. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Tarean stepped forward. “Hutto, he’s an abomination. Look at what your brother has done to himself. This ... thing, whatever it is, has possession of him.”

“Father, it does not,” Nisson said. “I’m in control of Graucus. Right, Agent Wellborn? What does your husband call them? Active biological armor systems?”

Simone saw her mother quietly regarding the results of this Alters’ radical augmentation. “I don’t know if you’re in control. Do you?”

“I have it all wrapped up, just below the surface like a dutiful servant, just like you’re going to teach them. Right? Be honest. They get to let their beasts out to play at some point.”

“You will, Mom, right?” Simone asked.

“I will.”

“What?” Beasley asked.

Joss hopped into the air. “I knew it! Damn, I wish I could!”

“Me, too,” Wally said.

Everyone glanced at Kimberlee, who had backed away but was unable to take her eyes from Nisson.

Hutto walked to his brother, smiling ear to ear. “You have to teach me this stuff.”

Nisson pointed at Yancey. “That’s what she’s here for.”

The rest of the students circled him as if he were some modeling black-sheep criminal on display for the world. Simone floated nearby and noticed how each part of him was honed for battle.

“How did you lose?” she asked.

He exhaled like a bull about to charge, loud enough that everyone stepped back. “You just say it so easily, little one.” The eyes in his skull were three times the size of a human’s, the color of rubies. “I lost. I did. I admit it. There, you heard me say it.”

“Who could beat you?”

Nisson laughed, and she thought she heard another voice hidden behind his. “There are worse than me, little one. Tell them, Agent Wellborn, what they get to face.”

“Dear,” Yancey said, “the Tricad have a few favorites they’ve taken from the league and ... morphed.”

“Tricad?”

“Three Rogues,” Tarean said, “who run the league’s regulated Fight Lords. My son lost to Gramgadon, an old student of mine, the same man who killed your brother, Jonen. He’s involved somehow. He’s retired, but I bet they’ll bring him out for the show. He’s a mean bastard.”

“Gramgadon,” Nisson said, “was unsanctioned champ five years in a row. I underestimated him. That’s how I lost.”

“He was ... the most dangerous Rogueslave,” Yancey said.

“Wait, Gramgadon?” Simon said. “Wasn’t that the old guy who made the announcement for the Rogues in the cafeteria?”

Yancey nodded. “The very one.”

Simone vibrated, as if zapped with electricity. “He couldn’t be the same man—”

“The Rogues turned him into a weakling to test him. He deserves worse,” Yancey said.

“Okay, Nisson,” Tarean said. “They’ve seen what you are.” To Yancey, he said, “Are you satisfied?”

She nodded. “He can bind to stop a full transformation. Good. We can use him.”

Coach Buzz had snuck onto the fight space. “That means he can control it ... when heated?”

“You bet I can, Buzzal,” Nisson said. The voice sounded like razors on metal.

Coach Buzz walked right up to the massive pit-fight demon, as if it were just a statue. “This thing looks like a third-grader dreamed it up.” Nisson looked down on him, scowling now. Coach Buzz continued. “Graucus, right? I wish I could have seen you lose to Gramgadon. How did it happen? My final moment was an ax to the chest. Yours?”

The scowl disappeared from Nisson’s face.

Simone watched the thing called Graucus fight to emerge, as if pushing at seams about to break. Its brow knit and a ripple of tension wracked its body. The manifestation that had changed Nisson’s physiology was a compromise. She had done that many times, but no where near as far with a real body. To manifest an entity almost, but not fully, meant it was feverish to push further into Realspace.
 

Simone glanced at her mother. “Mom …?”

Coach Buzz stepped forward, as if he might kick Graucus in the shin. “Come on, Graucus. Final moment time.”

Nisson looked like he could feel the thing inside him near to bursting with hate. Simone guessed he contained a hurricane of energy. He either had to let it out in a controlled manner, or shut if off, which would be dangerous at this point.

“Hutto,” Nisson said, ignoring Coach Buzz’s taunts. “Show me what you got.”

Tarean began moving everyone aside. Yancey helped.

Coach Buzz looked to Yancey. “Are you sure?”

She nodded.

Simone watched as Hutto engaged in a stunning display of gymnastics and technical striking and grappling, but he could do nothing against his transformed brother. She saw with clarity what they faced. She also saw her mother watching with a smile. The demon-thing hidden in Nisson Toth was what her mother hoped for humanity. For a half second she felt revolted, fearing what it would be like to be that. Something inside her, though, reacted to the display of dominance by the foreign entity. She couldn’t stand the sight of it beating up Hutto.

After a smothering bear-hug by Graucus, Hutto flew across the fight space and tumbled in a heap.

Before he could jump to his feet, Simone expanded herself into a glowing blue form. “Fight me.”

Joss moved into position for a better view. “Awesome! I can’t wait to see Simone!”

“No, Simone!” Yancey said. “You can’t bind yet. You don’t have the control.”

She waved her mother away. “I can. Dad showed me last night.”

“Your father’s ways are too dangerous.” She realized what her daughter had just told her. “What did he teach you?”

“I chose my entity, Mom. I can bind it.”

“Why didn’t you wait for me?”

“Dad’s a ghost. You’re not. He said I would have my own challenges.”

Yancey stopped halfway to Simone as if turned to stone.

Nisson mumbled something. He was talking to his entity, what he called Graucus.

Simone continued her dance and let her entities come, knowing they would. Her chosen one wouldn’t mind that she was a ghost.

Yancey watched her daughter moving through the prescribed steps her husband had created. Simone was being pulled into Skippard’s disembodied world, leaving her behind.

She scratched at her bandages, annoyed she still had to wear them. She stood beside Tarean Toth and his two sons, one an Alter in training, the other an Alter so far down the dangerous path that he was a liability. The Alter students would all have to follow him, no matter what. It was to the arena they were to go, and that was his world. Her mouth watered with anticipation, expecting Myrmidon to react and beg to emerge, as she watched her daughter finish the last step.

The transformation was immediate ... Simone’s chosen entity roared in satisfaction.

Yancey glanced once at Cliff, who stood by the door. Three of his cydrones stood guard outside, making sure no one entered. She guessed he was here to make amends for betraying them because they had been right the entire time about the importance of the entities, and of ghosting. He looked like he wanted to make a run for the exits, though.

She also saw the fear in the recruits’ eyes. Beasley shook. Kimberlee stood with eyes wide like a blinded animal’s about to be run down by a truck. Little Wally stood with his chin up, unwilling to show his fear. Joss seemed to appreciate the magnitude of what was happening out in the open and stared with wonder.

As long as the entities remain our allies, she thought ...

Like Myrmidon’s younger sister, maybe. Simone’s scales were a shimmering gold. A beautiful monster, indeed.

Nisson’s was much more human-looking than Simone’s entity. But Simone was still there. Her entity had pushed outward to the surface, but it remained in check. It was giving itself to her. She had bound it. It looked more like a digital holo-projection than a real manifestation.

Nisson laughed with Graucus’ voice. “It ain’t here. That’s a ghost monster. Hell, it’s pretty, though. You lettin’ it own you, darlin’. Keep that peacock on a leash. I can tell it wants free.”

Simone lashed out.

Nisson backed up, avoiding the strike, and danced away with a shuffle step. “There we go. I bet it’s happy now.” He feinted, struck with a right cross, fingers now displaying talons that cut deep into her incorporeal body, sending sparks flying. Simone’s entity roared, and Yancey started forward.

“Glad-fighting,” Nisson said, “is about honor, discipline, perfection, precision, and everything needed for one man to beat another.” He dodged a wild forward volley and ended up on the other side of her. “But pit-fighting is about
something else
.”