WHEN I WAKE, two words are waiting for me on the projector screen like an old favorite shirt; one lost in a box, long forgotten, rediscovered years later. They might be a little rougher than the last time I tried them out, but I still remember those words and how to use them.
[MARTIAL ARTIST]
Sarah never liked it when I practiced the class. She wasn't obvious about it, of course. Just moody; that special high-heel haughtiness she reserved for when she knew someone was about to make a fool of themselves. A playful kind of scorn, but scorn nonetheless. Guns were her religion. Martial Artists, despite being the class our city built its reputation on, were always country bumpkins to her. Too temperamental to learn the blade, too dull to learn the bullet, as she enjoyed saying whenever one of them was just within earshot.
Some of her opinions- no, a lot of them- also infected me. I was just a kid. Her kid. Even learning a second class was pushing it. She was a purist, and I wanted to be just like her, a gun the only tool I needed to solve a problem. I don't have that luxury anymore, though. Snowballing from loss to loss to loss and waking to a body so riddled with sores and half-patched wounds that it can barely move is a wakeup call and a half that something needs to change now. I won't be walking away from another straight-on fight with the Armiger. Nor can I just throw myself at Dynasty hoping bullets and gunfights will slow them down. Krey tried to tell me otherwise. He's got that fire. Like Sarah, he doesn't go cold- he runs hot, and losing only stokes that fire hotter.
But that day in Ulysses' gym, he didn't win another round, either.
"I believe that means it's time for a change of strategy, Emilia," I mutter to the faraway ceiling, doing my best impression of Ulysses' accent. Half the words come out in a dry-tongue mumble. Pawing the bleariness from my eyes, I sit back up on the bench with gun in hand, cringing at every creak and groan my joints make. Every muscle in my body feels strung tight as a bad piano wire.
My JOY's battered outer shell pulses with the old one-two light of a missed notification. I pull it up with a fingertip, scanning the contents. Two missed calls from Ulysses while I was passed out. He's got to be worried about me. A pang of hurt goes through my heart before I delete the logline. If I called back now, he'd ask too many questions that I can't answer until I'm done with Nero. Better to leave them unasked and unanswered.
Blinking quick and covering a yawn with my offhand, I glance down at the arena floor to finally get a look at the repetitive noise that woke me up. It's a familiar one to my ears: bare limbs thudding into padded leather, rattling chains, the shuffle-squeak of sneakers against stone. Boxing practice, simple as it gets. Down on the arena floor, the gang greaser who was manning the front counter plods his way through a workout, striking the sandbag at a hamstrung rhythm. I've watched plenty of Martial Artists fight before, whether in gyms or the streams or out on the street. Ulysses was always my golden benchmark. He was a boxer through and through. All arms, knuckles, and fists. Legs trained for sidesteps and pivots, not powerhouse kicks.
This guy? He's... well, he's interesting.
The timing of his strikes sounds like it's determined by a dice that he rolls every second. Sometimes he's quick. A one-two pop. Then a wait, a hit, double wait, strike, and again just when I think he's going to hold. He doesn't let a single part of his burly frame go to waste. Even though his opponent's just an inanimate bag, he goes for shoulder slams, headbutts, hip checks. Scuffed shit that'd get you booed out of the Metro Blockhouse in a heartbeat.
"Bet you've fucked some people up with moves like that," I say, hobbling down the steps to the ringside. Gate's already unlocked, I flip a latch and limp onto the sandstone, then lean back against the low steel wall.
Nabuna jolts out of his training with a start. "Fuck. Don't scare me like that, chica." Arches a bushy eyebrow at the stands. "Were you sleeping up there the whole time?"
"The crick in my neck is screaming a very emphatic yes."
"Caco was wondering where you scurried off to." Shrugging, he shifts back to the bag. Down to a tank top, dense muscle tensing under a layer of fat like waves and water. "Not a fan of beds?"
I sniff out a laugh. "Any bed at a fight club would look like a crime scene under a blacklight. I'll take the bench."
"You do got that..." he grunts and drives the heel of his palm into the bag, "...that look."
"Besides. Wouldn't want to interrupt the thieves while they're patching their wounds."
"Nah, they don't fuck. Least, not more than anyone else does down here."
"Gotta cure the depression somehow," I say. "Drugs, drinks, 'drenaline. Am I missing anything else?"
Thud. "Food."
"Ah. Yeah." My stomach growls loudly at the reminder. "That too."
"But in answer to your question, yes. I have," thud, "done some boys in. Though I mostly just throw the rowdy ones out on the street these days."
"Working for the Anvil, I bet you get a lot of practice."
"Eh. Job's a job. We all gotta scrape by somehow. Can't all run around being vigilantes, else there wouldn't be anyone left to make the crime happen." Stepping back from the bag, Nabuna glances at the projection floating beside him, then drops to doing pushups on the floor. A vaguely familiar flash of crimson hair directs the workout program the greaser is watching, counting the repetitions out loud.
"People like an underdog," I murmur.
Nabuna grunts a questioning noise from the floor.
I shake my head. "Something I heard a friend say." I nod at the screen. "You watch that guy too?"
"The Showmaker? Who doesn't?" At a word from the video, Nabuna hops back to his feet with a surprising amount of agility for a guy his size and resumes his weird boxing tempo. "I've been following him since before he started showing up on the uni streams. Good videos. Lots of stuff on discipline, training, even some home videos talking about uni and classes. All that wholesome shit." He scratches at his hair while the devil on the stream executes a three-sixty showstopper of a kick that snaps a double-heavy bag clear off the chain. "He's got that optimism, you know? Makes you feel like you're up there with him, not stuck down here in the grime. Fun to watch."
I give a closer eye to the stream. "Easy to be an optimist when you live on the surface."
"Easy to be a pessimist when you live in the Vents."
Spying the frown on my face, Nabuna chuckles and hocks his JOY over to me. I catch it without looking and let the screen float in front of me. Red, whatever his name is, patiently breaks down the individual steps of the kick with a ludicrous amount of balance and body control. Grinning all the while, a dreamer's yearning in his eyes. The same kind of look Sarah had when she talked about her plan to unite the Vents with Ulysses and Dax. Like she was aiming at something so much bigger than herself and finally thought she had a shot at it.
"Been thinking about picking up some new tricks," I say, covering for my absentminded pause. "You learn anything good from these vids?"
"Anything good? I learned how to fight from watching him."
I copy the stream to my own JOY and pass Nabuna's back with an underhanded toss. "Might have to check it out, then."
"Give me a ring when you do. I'll throw hands if you need a training partner."
"Hah. Good one, greaser."
"I'm serious."
"So am I," I snort. "My face is nailed to the top of the 'shoot-to-kill' leaderboard. I'm not going to be able to put a foot in a gym for the rest of my life."
"You here, ain't ya?" Nabuna bumps a fist against my shoulder when he goes to grab a towel from the ringside wall. "Optimism, chica."
The most casual remark, but it smarts like Sarah herself said it. Cheeks burning, I push off the wall and go sweep my leg under the dangling sandbag like I did to Krey, that day at Ulysses' place. Five years ago, just about, it feels an eternity has passed since those days. Since I started seeing the holes in my heroes, more every year.
I repeat the sweep halfheartedly, feeling the instinctual tug of my JOY's neural link as it autocorrects my balance and makes microadjustments to my form. Training wheels, we call the sensation. Any fighter worth their salt leaves the function off, but if you're a new learner of a class, like me, even a stiff and clunky kick is better than one that ends with you tripping over your own feet. Still, it's weird feeling the tug-of-war between my reflexes and the neural link. I can't remember the day I shut it off for my other class. I don't think I ever turned it on in the first place. Sarah's rule.
I look up while repeating the sweep for a third time when Matthias' voice pipes up from the arena edge, butting against Nabuna's in friendly conversation. A far harsher arrival snaps out to my right.
"You look like shit," she says.
Lain. Suddenly behind the bag, bracing it with her hand right as I drive a shin into it. It doesn't budge an inch. She leans around the side and gives me a disinterested up-down. "Surprised you're still on your feet."
I carefully pull my foot back. "Surprised you're up so soon."
"It's six in the PM. Half a day's gone. Where else would I be?"
"Not here."
"Fair. If I were in charge, believe me, I'd have left your ass to the Armiger." Lain moves around the bag, lowering her voice so the boys can't hear. "In case you thought you'd escape that conversation I promised, I wanted to make something real fucking clear to you. I'm not here to be a hero. I'm not here because I believe in your delusions or Matthias' fantasies. I'm a realist and a survivor. And this little idea you two have cooked up? Sarah Morninghawk's dream?" She scoffs. "Next time the bullets start flying, you're going to be saving yourself, gunslinger. No one can stop Dynasty. I'm not getting dragged down with someone who thinks they can. Neither is Matti. And once this summit bullshit with the Eight is over, we're out of here."
I glance back at the ringside wall; Matthias' quiet laughter. His eyes dart over to us in silent question. I imagine because Lain started blocking him out of her head.
"What if he wants to get dragged down?" I ask.
"Then I'll pull him out of the water kicking and screaming." She runs a hand through her hair, letting it hang straight down her back. "It's nothing personal, Mori. I don't hate you. I'm just not an idiot, either."
"Yeah. I get it." I blink, and for a moment, it's Sarah and Ulysses I see leaning against the wall, not Matthias and Nabuna. Shake my head, the image bleeds away. "We're all rats here. We do what we have to."
"You have a friend. You know what it's like."
"Survive together, no matter what." I finger the 6-Teba absentmindedly. "Krey doesn't trust me anymore. He thinks I'm weak."
"Guys like that think everyone who doesn't see things their way are weak. He's going to get everyone who will listen to him killed. And a lot of people are going to listen. At least you decided to stop." She picks at her cuticles. "Whole city's tired of being pushed around. Someone takes the reins and tells them who to point a gun at, they'll pull the trigger in a heartbeat."
"They pull that trigger, and we all lose." I slowly shake my head. "If things get out of control, the Champion or the corps will have all the warrant they need to come down and clean up the Vents like they've been talking about doing for decades. Or, more likely, they'll pick who they want to do the cleaning up for them while their hands stay clean. And who do you think that'll be?" My fingernails bite deep into my palm. "Some of the Eight are ex-league fighters, but they all want what Sarah did: the Vents freed. There's only one group who doesn't."
"The boys in orange."
"The boys in orange," I echo. "Dax once said that our freedom would only come when they were cut out of the game. It has to be united. But after seeing Krey..." My words trail off, lost somewhere in the swamp of doubts that have mired me since Sarah's death. "...It's like you said. If someone takes the reins and gives them a common enemy, they'll pull the trigger."
A ghost of jumbled memories passes in front of my eyes. An alley, a bridge, a woman, a gun in my hand; the yawning Abyss patiently waiting to devour us all. Darkness clawing its way up the towers like a living tide. My world, the Vents, slowly withering as a dragon's orange claws curl around its heart.
"I can give them that enemy," I say. "I just don't know if it'll be enough to make them shoot."