Zeroboxer (14 page)

Every camera came to rest on Carr's bruised and battered face. The referee brought over the thick belt, emblazoned with the ZGFA logo and the carved shape of the Cube in metallic relief. He held it up and released it, and it floated, weightless, like an object from the heavens. Carr began to cry. The referee pulled the belt out of the air and placed it around his waist, and Carr tried to say something in thanks, but he had no voice.

All his life, he'd wanted this moment. Now he had it, and it was even better than he'd imagined. It was as glorious as a thousand stars being born. It was worth every minute of training, every hurt, every moment of fear or self-doubt, every drop of sweat and blood. It was worth his mother's fateful, misguided choices. With grateful certainty, he knew it was worth being what he was. It was perfect.

PART TWO
OUT OF ORBIT

FIFTEEN

C
arr set his cuff against the entry reader and the door
opened. His hand around Risha's wrist, he tugged her along after him. “Don't look yet,” he said. “Not yet. Okay, now.”

She opened her eyes and gasped. He grinned, and wound an arm around her waist. “What do you think?”

“The view … it's incredible.” She walked slowly toward the floor-to-ceiling windows that filled one side of the apartment's living room. The sun was shining across the side of the Moon, illuminating a beautiful, barren white landscape of snaking canyons and vast craters. Where the sunlight faded into darkness, there were twinkling clusters of light—the lunar stations at night. Beyond the vista, Earth shone distant in all her slowly rotating blue, green, and white magnificen
ce.

“You can see Mars too, sometimes,” he said.

She turned in a circle to take in the rest of the apartment. It was orders of magnitude bigger and nicer than his old place, but he hadn't gone crazy. A good chunk of his title winnin
gs had gone
toward settling bills, including some pricey nanos and brain scans (good news: no sign of chronic traumatic encephalopathy yet), as well as a payment to the best pediatric doctor in Toronto on behalf of the Loggins family. Then, with decidedly mixed feelings, he'd sent the rest to Sally.

He'd called her after the fight, like he'd promised. “My darling, my baby boy,” she'd said, sniffling with proud tears, and Carr, with the belt around his waist and flying high on endorphins, had said, “We did it, Mom. It's okay, we did it,” and only later questioned what he'd meant. He'd only called Sally twice in the four months since then, and they'd talked about nothing important. He couldn't figure out whether he wanted to be angry, grateful, or forgiving toward her, and trying to reconcile all three was confusing.

The influx of sponsorship money, luckily, had given him more than enough cash to play with when searching for a new place. This two-story unit in the Palisio One (
Leave Earth, Come Home
) was the second place he'd seen. Fantastic view, prime location, and express bus service to the Virgin Galactic Center, meaning fifteen minutes door-to-Cube. He was sold.

He tried not to think about how he could have gotten the place next door, an even
larger suite with a jacuzzi, if it weren't for the twenty percent of his earnings that disappeared whenever he made a deposit to his account. As Mr. R had promised, he'd received a message with no r
eturn coding, just simple instructions for setting up a direct transfer. He'd ignored it for a few days, and it had shown up again. The third time, it came attached to a copy of his damning genetic profile. A week before the title fight, he'd swallowed the vile taste in his mouth and done as Mr. R demanded.

Carr shoved aside the unpleasant memory. Risha was wandering through the rooms, running her fingers across the built-ins, checking out the kitchen appliances and the entertainment room, clucking with approval at the artificial intelligence upgrades. He followed her with hungry eyes. “There's plenty of closet space in the bedroom,” he reminded her. “And an extra key, so you can always stay the night. … Or, you know …
every
night.”

She paused and glanced over at him. “You're suggesting I move in with you?”

Carr shrugged, smiling. “It's a big place for one person.”

The corners of her lips rose in a sly expression. “You're a bit young to be settling down.”

She was obviously teasing him, but he couldn't help wrinkling his nose. “People said I was a bit young to be a title contender too.”

Risha closed the pantry door and came back to him. “No one is saying that now.”

He gave up resisting and kissed her, working his hands under her shirt and over her breasts. “This is definitely not
settling
,” he said. He was still faintly amazed she let him handle her so wantonly. An extremely vivid and deliciously explicit memory from the previous night made his insides shiver.

Sex with Risha … it was the most amazing, most wonderful part of being champion. Not that those two things were connected; they weren't. But they
felt
like they belonged together. Risha was too devastatingly sexy for anyone
but
a champion, Carr decided. He admitted he'd started out as overeager as a kid standing on the deck before his first fight, but, as was the case with any physical skill he tried, he got better fast. It was all a matter of practice. A lot of practice. There was no such thing as too much practice, after all. Risha had opened up a part of his brain and lit it on molten fire.

“Hmmm.” She pulled back from him slightly. “I have a surprise for you too.”

“Yeah?” Carr hoped it was something she was wearing. Flimsy and made of lace.

No such luck. She checked her cuff. The schedule it displayed was color-coded according to some scheme mysterious to him. “First we have to go to HQ for an event. We're supposed to be there in ten minutes.”

Carr looked longingly back at the bedroom but let himself be tugged out the door.

Several minutes later, they were hopping off the bus in front of ZGFA headquarters. It was located within easy walking distance of the gravity zone termi
nal, where vehicles queued in and out of the freeway tubes that led to the Virgin Galactic Center. The building was designed, fittingly, in the shape of a perfect cube and constructed with thin, translucent fiber-optic concrete so that under th
e artificial daylight of Valtego's inner ring business district, it had a sheen that mimicked that of the real Cube.

“What is this event again?” Carr asked as they approached the entran
ce.

Risha glanced at him sideways from under her lashes. “Don't you look at the itinerary I send to you every morning?”

“I was too tired this morning. You wore me out.” He slid a hand down to squeeze her bottom, still nursing his disappointment at having to leave the apartment.

She gave him a mock-stern look. “Behave yourself. It's a school group. And a lot of Terran press.”

Carr groaned. “I thought we agreed to cut back on the school groups. This is the third one this month.”

“They're important,” Risha said. “Did you know you're the second-most-popular athlete among Terran boys aged eight to fourteen, and trending up week after week?” The doors slid open to admit them into a room packed with people. “Besides,” she whispered, “this group is special.”

Cameras and reporters swung around to track their entrance. Carr barely noticed the cameras anymore, they followed him around so often. He did notice Bax Gant standing in front of a group of about thirty kids who looked to be about ten to twelve years old. Gant was welcoming them and talking about the history of zeroboxing, gesturing around at the ZGFA's land-training gym, which took up the entire first floor of the building.

As soon as they caught sight of Carr, the kids burst into excited shouts and ran toward him, forgetting Gant completely. In the midst of his name being called over and over, and the pleas for autographs and photos, and the crush of small bodies reaching out to touch his arms, Carr's eyes fell immediately upon one familiar figure.

“Enzo!” He grabbed the boy by the shoulders and held him at arm's length, bewildered. “You're here?”

Enzo's face split in a grin of delight. “My feed was named one of the top ten zeroboxing fan-feeds on Earth by ZGFA contest judges, and when they found out that I knew you, my school won a trip to Valtego.”

“That's … fantastic,” Carr sputtered. Enzo looked different; gone were his thick, owlish glasses. “You look great,” Carr said. “Are your eyes … ?”

“Yeah. They're fixed. New optics put in too—can you believe it? My first ones. And gene therapy for my asthma. Doctor says I won't need my inhaler anymore.”

A lump formed in Carr's throat. He pulled the boy to him and wrapped him in a tight hug. Dozens of cameras inched closer to capture the moment.

“I'm glad to see you, little man,” he whispered. He didn't think that winning the championship belt could get any sweeter than it had been on that day, but finally seeing Enzo healthy, knowing that the boy wouldn't have to go through the rest of his life carrying his genetic deficiencies like a public mark of shame … it made his victory even more worthwhile.

When they pulled apart, Enzo's eyes were fixed on the ground. “I know what you did, paying for everything for me out of your title fight winnings. I don't know what I've done to deserve it or how I could ever thank … ” His voice hitched. He swiped his new eyes with the back of his hand, embarrassed to meet Carr's gaze.

“Are you kidding me?” Carr made himself laugh so he wouldn't start getting emotional. “You were my first real fan.”

Ba
x Gant cleared his throat. He'd somehow migrated to stand directly beside Carr and was beaming at him and Enzo as if he were so very proud of both of them. Addressing the entire crowd, he said, “This is a special day, and a special moment, because for every one incredible success story like Carr Luka, there are thousands of kids who can't realize their dreams because they were born without basic genetic care. The fact that Carr”—Gant put a hand on Carr's shoulder—“cares so much about this issue proves that he's a true champion, not just inside the Cube but outside of it too.”

Gant put his other arm around Enzo so the cameras could capture all three of them together. “That's why I'm proud to announce that the Zero Gravity Fighting Association is a founding member of the Luka Foundation, whose mission will be to provide basic genetic screening and therapy to Earth's most at-risk and low-income communities.”

Reporters started talking all at once, shouting out questions that Carr didn't register. He was glad that fighting in the Cube had taught him how to stay cool, to keep any sign of vulnerability off his face. The Luka Foundation? Where had this come from? He sought out Risha, standing at the edge of the crowd. She smiled at him, but he felt annoyance well up and didn't return her smile. Why hadn't she told him? Relentless brandhelm that she was, she and savvy old Gant had sprung Enzo's school visit on him and timed the whole thing for maximum publicity.

Gant was waving off more questions. “A press release will be out shortly,” he assured everyone with a smile. “These lucky kids have a schedule to stick to, and I don't want to take away any more of their time with Carr.”

The whole time he signed his name and pressed his thumbprint to cuff displays, posed for photos and clips, and answered random questions ranging from “If you could fight any famous person in history, who would it be?” to “What's your favorite flavor of ice cream?” Carr kept glancing between Enzo, so happy and normal-looking now, Risha and Gant standing together with satisfied glows, the reporters and cameramen, and the handful of zeroboxers in the background who were using the land-training equipment but had paused to watch the goings-on. It was hard to reconcile how genuinely happy he was about helping Enzo and seeing him here, with the staged veneer of it all.

He had a lot to learn and get used to when it came to the celebrity of being a champion.

Finally, teachers began to usher the kids toward the exit and Risha and Gant drew Carr all-too-willingly in the other direction.

“Message me and I'll find you again before you leave, all right?” he made Enzo promise, then hugged him again while half a dozen boys stood around in an awestruck and jealous semi-circle. As they followed their school group, the other kids surrounded Enzo eagerly, vying to talk to him and walk closest to him.

“Come up to my office, both of you,” Gant said, striding ahead of them.

Carr started to follow, then paused and turned back. “You go ahead. I'll be there in a few minutes.”

He'd spotted DK coming off of the gyroscopic trainer, a machine that developed a zeroboxer's space ear while working cardio and flexibility in 360 degrees of motion. It would make most Terrans ill after about eight seconds, but DK stepped off it casually, threw a towel around his neck, and was crossing the floor filled with machines and trampolines when he spotted Carr coming toward him. His step slowed
.

“DK,” Carr called. “Haven't seen you for a while. Where've you been hiding?”

The man smiled, but it was small and forced, not the flashy white grin Carr was used to. “I guess we're on different schedules now.”

“Yeah, well, I'm all over the map. I barely know my own schedule.” He stopped just short of DK, but the man didn't extend
his hand or clap him on the shoulder, and Carr felt awkwardly unable to make the first gesture. “So,” he said, “you got your next fight lined up?”

DK was silent for a couple seconds, then said stiffly, “I just came off my last fight.”

“Aw, hell, of course. I forgot.”

“I lost in a split decision,” DK said, “in case you forgot that too. Or if you didn't know, being real busy and all.” He started walking past Carr toward the locker room.

“C'mon, man, I didn't mean to … ” Carr called after him. “Look, sorry to hear about your fight. Let's at least fly together sometime, yeah?” But DK was already disappearing through the door.

Carr ground his teeth, then shot a glower around the gym, furious that others had just witnessed his humiliation. He caught sight of Blake watching the exchange impassively from over by the water dispenser. Carr strode up to him, fuming. The man didn't make a move forward or backward, just watched Carr's approach with his pale eyes.

“What's with him?” Carr demanded.