Zeroboxer (4 page)

“You eat shrimp,” he said. Martians, as far as he knew, were all vegetarian. Raising animals for food would be a staggering waste of precious, mined water and terraformed land; he'd heard somewhere that colonists considered the practice immoral.

Risha said, “I'm half-Martian, if you must know.”

“I couldn't tell.”

“The geneticist made sure I had all the standard Martian traits. My parents didn't want me to be disadvantaged in any way.” Risha snorted as she picked up her chopsticks. “Good thinking at the time. Turns out that when I was twelve, they decided not to renew their marriage contract and I moved with my father to Earth.”

“That must have been tough,” Carr said. There had been Martian ex-pats in Toronto, but, growing up, he didn't see them on the streets often. They tended to stay in their domed, climate-controlled neighborhoods, uncomfortable with Terran crowds, heat, and open sky.

“The first year was awful. I shrank four inches. Gravity adjustment therapy and bone density treatment made me feel too heavy to get out of bed, and that wasn't even the worst of it. On the bright side, I do eat shrimp.” She paused and leveled an impatient look at Carr. “We're supposed to be talking about you, not me.”

“I get to learn about you too. Decide if I want you as my brandhelm.”

She put down her chopsticks, as if that idea hadn't occurred to her. “I don't think there are other candidates,” she said. “Unless you have the money to hire your own?”

Of course he did not. “Maybe I don't need one.”

“Everyone needs one. Everyone who wants to be someone.
That includes you, I'm sure.”

Carr found himself staring again, his initial annoyance blotted out by fascination. Risha had a calm and quick intensity. Everything about her—her steady gaze, the way she leaned slightly forward with her mouth gently pursed, her slender fingers rolling the chopsticks—seemed subtly challenging. Most of the girls Carr met were on vacation, pretty and giggly, ready to have a good time. Risha was different. She made him want to sit up straight and pay attention. He wasn't used to fee
ling this way around a woman.

A service droid slid up with their food. As she ate, Risha unfolded a thinscreen and said, while scrolling through her notes without looking at him, “You're trending up strongly. Your subscriber base grew by thirty-nine percent in the forty-eight hours after your match against Jay Ferrano, and your first four fights are the most downloaded of all Terran zeroboxing matches this week. That makes you the fourth most-watched zeroboxer and the fifty-ninth most-watched Terran athlete right now.” She nodded to herself at this bit of excellent news. “What's more, your genetic profile should appeal to a very large pool of consumers and sponsors.”

Carr was about to ask who the first, second, and third most-watched zeroboxers were, but the question flew from his head. “You looked up my genetic profile?”

She raised her head at his indignant surprise. “Only what's publicly available through an employment check. The point is, you don't have any physical or mental risk factors, off-spec traits, or anything that might be a red flag for sponsors. You're also young, attractive, and advantageously aracial.”

Carr had no reply. He was used to being judged on physical characteristics—body mass, reach, speed, strength—but not in the way Risha was laying it out. He'd never considered how being an ethnic mash-up—dark hair, gray eyes, light olive skin—might be useful to him in any way, or imagined sponsors evaluating him
on criteria unrelated to his ability to win in the Cube. He supposed he did need a brandhelm after all. He hid this sour thought behind a long drag of salty udon soup.

“It's preliminary,” she continued, “but I've written up the outline of a ZGFA brand campaign promoting the rise of the next generation of Terran zeroboxing stars, elevating you as the leading asset.”

Carr supposed he ought to feel flattered. Instead, he scratched the back of his neck, confused. “Aren't you getting a little ahead of yourself?”

“How so?”

“I hate to dash your optimism, but I'm still a new guy here. I've got six pro fights under me. You want to look just at the younger fighters? Heck, DK's had nearly a dozen matches. Blake's right up there too.”

“Danilo Kabitain?” Risha nodded absently, plucking the tail off a shrimp. “Not as marketable. He's obviously from Asialantis—a weak market, no one with money lives there anymore—plus he was born on a settlement and has never lived on Earth, so he's not even technically Terran. Murphy is polarizing among fans and has a moderate-high risk of asocial behavior that won't sit well with sponsors.”

“They're good zeroboxers,” Carr said, defensive.

“Broad appeal is what we need, to grow awareness and popularity of the sport.” She slid the thinscreen toward him. “We need to start increasing your touchpoints if we're going to retain your new subscribers. You haven't been sending out anything from your optic cameras or broadcasting any exclusive post-fight commentary.”

Carr's eyes swam at the blocks of graphs and numbers she'd shoved in front of him. He pushed the thinscreen back across the table. “The only ‘touchpoints' on my mind are the ones scored in the Cube. Those are the only important ones.”

She tilted her chin down and studied him, mouth pursed. The light had started to soften into simulated evening. The halogen street lanterns came on, and the boulevard began to fill with people hunting for dinner spots, arriving or leaving the gravity zone terminal, wandering past the bright holovid banners that encouraged them to visit
Second Womb: A Weightless Spa Experience.
Risha folded her thinscreen. She said, a little slower and more quietly, “We're on the same team, Carr Luka.”

A thought occurred to him as he nudged his empty bowl aside. “How many clients have you had, Risha Ponn?” He articulated her full name, as she had done with his.

She hesitated a moment, her confident mask slipping a little.

“I'm the first one, right?”

“Yes.” She held his gaze. “I asked for this job. I've always wanted to work off-planet.”

Great stars. An overzealous, way-too-easy-on-the-eyes, half-Martian rookie brandhelm. He didn't know what he'd been expecting, but this wasn't it. In a brief spasm of paranoia, Carr wondered if Gant had dumped her on him just to keep her busy with one of his less valuable fighters.

Then he squinted with satisfaction. He knew who Risha was after all. She was that fighter entering the Cube on Valtego for the first time, aloof and anxious, desperately hungry to prove himself. Carr had met that guy plenty of times; he'd been him, too.

“All right,” he said, leaning back and stretching, feeling more relaxed. “We might have started off a bit prickly with each other. Seems like we can agree that I know next to nothing about this marketing stuff, and you're no zeroboxer. I guess I'll have to trust you, and if we're going to be on the same team, like you say, then you've got to do the same with me.”

Risha was silent for a moment. Then she crossed her long, glistening legs, tucking a strand of black hair behind her ear in a small movement that made her seem younger and just a touch vulnerable. “You know,” she said, “you're quite consistent with what I expected from studying your fights and interviews. Athletically gifted, ambitious, and arrogant, but more intelligent and emotionally stable than is typical for a man who makes a living with his fists.” She smiled then, a small but lovely smile. “I like you, Carr. I think we'll work well together after all.” She extended her
hand to him across the table.

Carr
laughed. At least Risha fit one Martian stereotype,
speaking her mind as bluntly as a sci
entist pronouncing results. Her hand, when he took it, was firm and hot, like
a smooth, sun-warmed stone. “Okay,” he said. “Here we go, then.”

FIVE

T
he tour group, sixteen people in all, floated out to the deck tentatively, tethered to the guide-rails and firmly grasping the hallway rungs. Without the clamor of the crowd and the sharpness of adrenaline, the Cube and its stadium seemed altogether different. Tame, empty, just a large transparent room hanging in space. That didn't stop the tourists from gazing in wonder at the structure and the vacant tiers of seating, oohing and ahhing and madly tapping cuff-links to send their optic feeds to friends.

Idly, Carr wondered who they were: high rollers on a complimentary special excursion, corporate executives on a team-building trip, travel journalists, or just people with the right connections to Valtego brass. These behind-the-scenes tours interrupted training, especially when zeroboxers were asked to come out and act as guides, but it would be stupid to say no to something that helped pay the bills around the gym and kept the ZGFA in the Valtego city council's good graces. Today, everyone else was busy, and since Carr was two weeks post-fight with no word yet about his next match, he'd naturally been tapped to entertain the planet rats.

“
How many of you have watched zeroboxing?” he asked, raising his voice over the sound of the janitor droid's vacuum hose as it swept the stands. A sizable show of hands. “Does anyone know how it origi
nated?”

“On mining ships,” shouted an overweight man floating in the back.

Carr nodded. “The old ion propulsion ships used to take months to make each leg of the trip from Mars to the Main Belt, over to Earth with their cargo, and back to Mars. The crews would be signed up for voyages that lasted for years. Well, you can imagine these miners were pretty rough guys, on ships with not a lot of room. Re-mineralization therapy wasn't that great back then, so they also needed to keep exercising and blow off steam. They started using the recycling holds for sport fights, which is why amateur matches are still called ‘recyclers.'”

A hand shot up in the back. “Did you plan that move ag
ainst Ferrano, or did it just happen?”

“Err … sometimes you start with a plan, but then throw it out and make a new plan about two seconds before you do it.”

A woman in the front asked, “Do you know who you're going to fight next?”

Carr spread his hands, “Hey, hold on. If you want to ask me questions, let's save them for the end so you don't miss the good part of this tour, okay?” Employing the mid-fight strategy adjustment he'd just described, he decided to skip the rest of his educational spiel. “Who's been on a spacewalk?” Most of them. “Who's been in a Cube?” Only one. “Well this is your chance. Two at a time in there, and if you feel nauseous at any point, just tug the tether and we'll pull you out.”

There was a murmur of excitement, and people lined up at the entry hatches. Carr let the first two in, a young woman and a slightly older man, both of whom looked like office workers in their gym clothes. He watched them drift toward the center, the man cycling his arms and legs superfluously, the woman squealing as she started to turn upside down. Instinctively she tried to turn back “right side up” instead of simply stretching her feet out for the wall with her cheap rental grippers. Carr hoped she wouldn't be sick. It happened once in a while, and no one wanted to be responsible for clean-up.

“I love watching your fights. You're so athletic
.
” An impressive bosom appeared in front of him, attached to a smiling woman with color-changing hair dye. “Will you sign my chest?” She held out a black marker.

“
Sure.” Carr signed the cleavage above the hem of the woman's scooped neck shirt while her friend captured the whole thing with a cuff-link camera. She was short, creamy, doughy—the opposite of Risha Ponn. She gave him a smothering hug that smelled of vanilla, her hair shifting from sandy blond to auburn red. Carr wondered if his new brandhelm would consider this a “touchpoi
nt” and whether she would approve—then wondered why he was wondering that.

He reeled in the two people in the Cube—both of them grinning weakly, having valiantly and successfully held onto their breakfasts—and let in the two women, who began whooping and pushing each other off the walls. The next man in line was the one who had raised his hand and claimed to have been in a Cube before. “Carr, I'm Brock Wheeden. I've followed your fights closely, and it's a real pleasure to meet you.” He shook Carr's hand.

“Thanks.” The name was vaguely familiar. So was the man's face: a short orange beard darker than his hair and a slightly squashed nose.

“I think the young talent in the ZGFA is why you're seeing the huge growth in viewership. Terran zeroboxing is really taking off. Who knows, maybe the sport will become as popular on Earth as it is on Mars.”

The name and the face clicked. Wheeden was a prominent zeroboxing commentator on the Systemnet. He hosted a regular series called
Cube Talk with Brock
. It couldn't be a
coincidence that he
was here, could it?

“You would know more about that than I would,” Carr said. “I like your feed. I've used it to research opponents.”

“You just made my day,” Brock said. “You mind if I quote you on that?”

Wheeden's friend, next to him, asked, “So do you think you could beat the Reaper?”

Carr raised his eyebrows at the loaded question. Thirty-year-ol
d Henri “the Reaper” Manon was the reigning ZGFA lowmass champion. Wheeden and his friend were looking at Carr expectantly; no doubt a juicy bit of trash-talk from the Raptor would make it onto Brock's feed within minutes.

Carr hesitated; this wasn't a press conference, and he wasn't a title contender, not yet. Gant wasn't fond of fighters going off script and fanning speculation. “Sooner or later,” he said simply.

“So you agree with Xeth Stone that the Reaper has slowed down in his last couple matches?” Wheeden pressed.

Carr smiled. Lighting a match was different from igniting plasma fuel. “Looks like it's your turn in the Cube,” he said, helping the two women out and motioning the men in.

What a difference
,
Carr marveled. Last year, no one stopped him for his autograph or tried to extract pithy quotes from him. Last year, he'd been just another broke, nameless kid on Valtego, like lanky, mop-headed Scull over there, manning the other hatch and occasionally glancing over at him in surreptitious awe.

“You're the man of the hour, Carr,” said a voice near his shoulder.

The man next in line was older than the rest, but Carr could not tell how much older. His gray-blond hair was combed back over a high forehead. He was pale, as if he'd never
seen the sun. Even his eyes were pale, like an overcast sky. Multiple age-reversal treatments had given his face an artificially smooth, unblemished appearance, like a piece of wax fruit. “You're very level-headed about all the attention,” he said
.

Carr shrugged. “Fighting isn't a popularity contest.”

After his first four fights, people had started using words like “phenom” and “prodigy,” and he'd let it get to his head. Even with Uncle Polly to keep him in line, there had been new friends, and parties, and girls … heck, he'd only been sixteen. He'd gotten drunk on it all, let himself be lulled into losing a fight he should have won. Then he started hearing words like “flame out” and “one shot.” Now he was on the up and up again. Attention could be good or bad, he decided, but it didn't really matter.

The man smiled, as if Carr had said something to make him happy, but there was no real warmth, just a smug rising of the corners of his mouth. “That's a sagacious comment t
o make, at your age.”

Carr gave the stranger a sidelong glance. Something about the man's overly familiar tone, and the way he kept looking at him, made Carr's skin itch. His mind prickled unpleasantly with the suspicion that he'd seen this distinctive, whitish face before. Some time ago. Where? “Have we met?” he asked.

“Not properly.” Small creases appeared around the corners of the man's eyes. “But I know quite a lot about you. I'm an enormous fan of yours, Carr. Your mother and I met many years ago. So you could say I'm an old family friend.”

“Funny she's never mentioned you.” A slimy worry uncurled in Carr's stomach. He decided he did not like the man. He did not like the way his name sounded in the man's mouth, the r's too harsh, and how the man used his name too often, as if he were exercising some right to do so. He helped Wheeden and his friend out of the Cube and said, “Your turn.”

“Ah, no,” said the stranger, stepping aside politely. “We have much in common, Carr, but your vestibular system is not one of them. I'll remain a spectator.”

What an odd thing to say. The curl of worry bulged into mild panic. Carr tamped it down. He had nothing in common with this man; they looked nothing alike. Different eyes and nose and mouth, different build. His eyes narrowed. “I didn't catch your name, mister.”

Carr's cuff went off, playing a rising note in his ear. He looked down at the display. Gant.

“Scull, take over for a few minutes, will you?” he called, gesturing to his cuff. Scull nodded, and with a wary, backward glance, Carr grabbed the guide-rail and swung himself just inside the hall that led to the locker room. He hooked an ankle around a hallway rung to check his glide, holding himself in place as he accepted the call.

“What are you doing, Luka? Getting fat and bored out your mind yet?” The Martian sounded like he was walking through a noisy crowd.

“Just about, sir.”

“Well, cheer up. I have a headline fight for you. Jaycen Douglas was supposed to go up against BB Dunn, but he just pulled out because of injury. Needs another surgery, the doctor says. You want his spot?”

Depending on who you talked to you, Douglas was either the second best zeroboxer in the division, or Dunn was. Dunn had a better record, and had beaten Jay Ferrano, but then he'd lost to Douglas in a contested judge's decision. A rematch between them had been arranged to settle the matter. Now it wasn't going to happen. “When's the fight?”

“Three weeks.”

Three weeks!
A ridiculously short amount of time to train for a new opponent. As much as Carr lived for his next match, he'd expected two to three months to prepare, not three weeks. He was supposed to corner DK's match in eighteen days.

He ought to talk to Uncle Polly, think about this, get back to Gant later.

As if he'd read Carr's mind, the Martian's voice slowed, turned measured. “Now look, I'm offering this to you, but it's your choice whether to take it. You have momentum right now, and I get it, you don't want to risk losing that. Don't take on more than you can handle. Play it safe … if you think that's best.”

There was a chance Gant's prudent words were sincere. More likely he knew what buttons to push to arrange the fights he wanted. Whichever it was, the words scraped at Carr's insides like wire bristle; he grimaced. He remembered the last conversation they'd had—
I just bet on you—
and imagined the Martian moving chips off Carr's square.

He glanced back down the hall at the tour group. Strange; the pale, smooth-faced man was gone. The rest of the group was still milling about, most of them as uncoordinated in zero gravity as
elephant seals on land.

The idea of turning down a fight, any fight, seemed wrong. Like a beggar pushing away food, or a plant turning away from sun. Besides, winning this match would make him the indisputable contender for the title. “I'll take it,” he said.