Rats in the Pipes

8: A Puzzle and a Proposition

Life had improved for me and without any action on my part. Dom was giving me a Hi-Mid job once a cycle and my boot fund was coming along nicely. I'd possibly made a friend. I don't count Sol a friend. We get on all right but I'd never let my guard down with her beyond a little joke about the ceiling in our square. Besides which we don't really have much in common other than the daily struggle to survive. I've been lonely for seven years. That's a long time though I suspect most people in Mid and LoCit are lonely even if on the surface they socialise a lot.

I found myself thinking about the evening I'd spent with Per Das. My trouble is I have an enquiring mind. I like to know and understand things. Most people I've come across since I came to MidCit just slop up goo for entertainment and don't think of anything much except how to get a bit ahead of the game. That makes them profoundly boring. Per talked about things that were interesting. He's the only other person I've met who enjoys the discussion of what most people would regard as pointless subjects for their own sake. It didn't quite sit with his background as a forcer and a cage fighter and it intrigued me. Standing on the viewing platform watching the moonlight on the water and staring out at the hills on the far side of the reservoir had made me think about my family. They are out there somewhere and I had a moment of intense longing just to walk out of Esperance and try and find them. I hadn't meant to voice my thoughts but Per's reaction had been unexpected. He'd opened up as well. A look of profound understanding had passed between us. The basis of our relationship had shifted subtly but definitely towards friendship and trust. It wasn't there yet but it was far enough along that it reassured me. I wasn't worried that he was going to inform on me to WCM because of my bad citizenship attitude.

Cage fighting is a popular sport and it attracts a huge following in Mid and Lo-Cit. People have their favourite gladiators and there's often news and feature pieces about them on the free feeds. I've never been in to it but it provides a lot of people with an outlet for all the emotions they have to repress. They can project their anger with their boss or their despair and frustration with their life on to the fighters, scream obscenities and vent their blood lust in safety without contravening the City Code on correct behaviour. Esperance seethes with suppressed emotion. It would be all right if the emotions were positive ones but they're not. What bubbles under the surface is anger, resentment, frustration, jealousy, misery and suspicion. The only thing stopping riots and rebellion is sheer exhaustion from the long working hours. That and fear. The slogans on the hoardings and the feeds exhort us all to strive to rise up the levels through hard work and endeavour but the unspoken, universal undercurrent that is the real driver is fear. Fear of the downward slide. Everyone clings to what they have; does whatever it takes to acquire more against the inevitable day of bad luck, illness or accident that can send you down to the squats or into an internship from which you can never escape.

I wanted to know more about Per. He must have been extremely good to have collected enough in wins and bonuses to buy himself out so young. I checked out his Gladiator profile on the City's datastore. It wasn't difficult to find, all the gladiators have personal profiles and records. He wasn't a current fighter but he'd told me how long he'd been a forcer. I went back four years. None of them fight under their real names; they all have pseudonyms. The current champion goes by the name of Varg. I had to scroll through a few but I found him. Apollo, well that was appropriate given his colouring and good looks. He was standing hands on hips looking not that mean for a fighter. His hair was longer than the CSB regulation crop and you could really see how blonde it is. He wasn't heavily built like a lot of the fighters, he obviously relied on his height and reach coupled with agility and speed but his muscles were very well defined. He was scantily clad in a little white loincloth and gold boots. I stared. I almost wished I hadn't decided to check him out. It was going to be hard to get that image out of my mind. I read his profile and frowned. From fifteen to eighteen he'd done warm up and exhibition bouts along with other trainees plus acted as a second. He'd started fighting at eighteen and his record for the first eighteen months was average. Won more than he lost but it wasn't outstanding which it would have had to have been to allow him to buy himself out. He only fought half a dozen times after the first eighteen months and retired at twenty one. It didn't make sense and it just added to my curiosity about him.