You never get used to the applause.
You try to tune it out, after the thirtieth time you hear it. It’s distracting. Saps your concentration like nothing else - makes you think you’re good before you’ve even done anything. It’s a falsity. A lie. They’re not cheering for you. They’re cheering for the entertainment you are about to provide. They’re cheering because they can’t wait to see your face smashed on the floor. Your arms ripped off. Arm-ripping is the new thing. Managers encourage it. Drives the crowd wild, ups the TV ratings.
I stretch my arms over my head, crack my shoulders. The plain white tank top and blue pants have become my life. Girls wearing the same waltz around the locker room - slathering blue-green Contagel on their every joint, pulling their hair back, doing warm-up stretches. Laughing, about exams and their families. The applause from the crowd in the arena faintly rings. You can tell the noobies apart - the girls who are smiling, who let the applause make them giddy. The veterans are silent, save for courteous nods.
“Um,” The timid voice comes from a girl. “You’re Lin Harris, right? You’re really her?”
My eyebrow quirks. “Who’s asking?”
“A fan,” She smiles. “A really huge fan. I never thought I’d meet you here. I mean, you’d think someone like you would have your own locker room.”
I adjust my wristband. “Not how it works here.”
“Would you…sign this?” She holds out a tablet and a pen. “My sister is your biggest fan.”
I tap the LCD screen to clear it and sign my name. Her smile brightens.
“Thanks so much. It means a lot. After your accident, we got worried -” She stops herself. “But it’s good you’re back now.”
“You’re here to compete?” I ask. Red hair, freckles, pale skin. Her muscles are underdeveloped, knees knobby. Can’t be older than fourteen.
“I’m the Twin Blues’ new Knight. Miranda. Nice to meet you.”
I ignore her held-out hand. “I’m fighting you in three minutes. Don’t fake pleasantries.”
“It’s just a friendly handshake.” She looks taken aback.
“This is not a friendly game, Miranda,” I stress. The electronic chime of the five-minute warning echoes in the locker room. Girls filter out. I follow. They veer off to the waiting room for their round. My round’s first. I keep going down the polished cement hall, bright florescent lights making me feel exposed, stripping away the layers of foundation I’d put on for the voracious camera.
I pass the garage, a huge level beneath the auditorium that houses everyone’s rigs. Rows and rows of iron frames holding up the ten-foot tall mechanical beasts we call rigs - arms at their side, metal legs limp and helmeted heads bowed. Some are sleeker than others, less angled, with cutting-edge fittings - plexiglass visors, titanium alloy cleats, and multi-jointed fingers. The mechanics dash about, putting last minute touches on the rigs set to fight this round, angling them into position under the holes in the ceiling, where the platform will raise them into the arena.
“What are you doing here?” A mechanic grunts. I turn. Grease-smeared frown, jumpsuit patched in places. A sharp jaw and dark eyes with intimidating eyebrows.
“I happen to work here, Ryder.”
“You’re not supposed to be back for another two months.”
“Mmm,” I tap my lips. “True. I was getting tired of the hospital bed. Only so many soap operas a girl can watch, you know?”
“So you decided to sneak past security and have a casual live televised match? You’re insane.”
“And you’re a mechanic. Get back to work and mind your own business.”
“Does your manager know about this?”
I push past him. He doesn’t follow, but shouts down the hall.
“You better win.”
I hold a hand up in recognition. Ryder and I went pro at the same time - him a rig mechanic and me a pro-class Queen. The National Check Association moved us in from our hick towns at the same time - rode the same train into New Atlanta. He hasn’t changed - still a nosy ass.
The underground generators hum. I pass the tech office, the operators’ fingers moving smoothly over their keyboards as they write lines of code and cue in commercials and direct cameramen in the arena. The camera pans on the face of the white side Queen - her heart-shaped face glowing, long chestnut curls flowing around her shoulders as she puts on the crown, a photo-holographic visor. It looks the part - platinum-plated and etched with fine filigree. Beneath the pretty exterior is a powerful machine that allows the Queen to see a whole array of holographic screens she can arrange at her whim. The platinum rings on her fingers let her grab hold of the otherwise intangible screens and position them in midair.
I narrow my eyes at her. She smiles at the camera and waves. The announcer booms.
“On the white side we have Alana Freeman from Chicago, Illinois! A rising star, Alana and her team, the Rose Court, placed first in last year’s Regional Conference!”
Cheers. Whistles. The crowd is huge today. I swallow bile and keep walking.
Alana took my crown last year.
But she took more than that. I adjust the bandage under my shirt, cradling my ribs. All that’s left are bruises, but the offense runs into my marrow. She’ll pay. She’s so happy, so haughty. Not for long.
I nod at a technician, their lab coat swishing against the floor. They don’t recognize me. New guy. Most of the faculty at this stadium was fired after Alana's win that landed me in the hospital for liability reasons. It made slipping in unnoticed very easy. The badge on my chest reads Marilyn Gregory. Marilyn was a fellow Queen, and the leader of the team who was supposed to be playing today’s first match. I asked her to let me take over. Just once. She agreed. Of course she would - I’m Lin Harris. Everyone says yes to me.
At least, they used to.
Eight months of hospitals. Eight months of watching the game continue without me. People forgot, eventually. I dwindled as new champions rose, and new talent grew. In six months, no one remembered sixteen-year-old Lin Harris, country bumpkin flush with talent and showy arrogance. My manager assured me I’d take it all back after I got out of the hospital. But I couldn’t wait that long. Not while Alana sat on the Regional Conference title, gloating over a false win. A fluke.
I flash my badge at the security perched around the Queen’s Lift, a massive elevator spanning four floors of glass tubing. They run my fingerprint, and it confirms my identity - Marilyn. They nod me through. New security, too. Seems like everyone I used to know in this place got scrubbed. Except Ryder.
In the elevator I peel the skin-colored polymer off my finger, and it falls to the floor, Marilyn’s fingerprint smeared beyond recognition. The crowd’s cheering grows louder as the elevator rises. I take the paper mask - a cheap thing from a Mardi-Gras dollar store - and put it on. A little mystery never hurt anyone. Manager’ll hate me for it. The Committee of Check Integrity might suspend me. But I knew all that before I came here. I’m ready for it. I’m ready to risk it to settle the score.
The crowd’s cheering rises as the elevator does.
“Ground Floor. Please exit and take your position.” The mechanized voice of the elevator chimes. I missed that voice. I missed the musk of greased metal, hint of popcorn and soda, and the tang of burning solar cells. I missed the shine of metal walls and the sounds of generators and crowds. I missed this rush - the taut, red-hot wire trembling before the storm.
And then the doors open and the stadium lights blind me.
#
The bright Sunday light sears her eyes. Lin lowers the train window shade, cutting off the tops of trees and farmhouses and cows flashing by. Her fingers fiddle with the lunchbox in her lap - packed with cherry tomatoes, sautéed asparagus, herb pheasant breast. Fancy foods. Foods her mother could barely summon the energy to cook anymore. But she managed to crawl out of bed at four in the morning, somehow, and pack her daughter the fancy lunch, anyway. Lin closes her eyes and sees pretty blue eyes lined with age, thin hair falling out. She can still feel the warm, fragile hug her mother gave her on the front steps.
Walking to the train station would’ve hurt her. So Lin walked alone.
The compartment door snaps open. She meets the eyes of two suntanned, dark-haired boys. Their clothes are plain, suitcases clutched. The older one glances between his ticket and the number above the compartment door, and pushes his younger brother forward.
“Put your stuff under the bench.”
“Hi!” The younger boy smiles at Lin. “I’m Aidan.”
“Don’t talk to strangers,” The older boy - her age - grunts. Aidan frowns, but quiets and pushes his suitcase under the bench. They settle opposite her, Aidan’s face pressed against the window eagerly. He makes pig noises, nose upturned. The older boy rolls his eyes and occupies himself with a brochure for New Atlanta. They’re going to the same place she is.
“Look, Ryder! It’s like dad’s frog face!” Aidan points to the foggy imprint on the window. The grumpy brother - Ryder - frowns even harder.
“Stop.”
“I can’t. I’m going to make dad frog faces all over the window.”
“I said cut it out,” Ryder growls.
“You can’t stop me!” Aidan snaps, and stands on the seat, pulling the shade up and squashing his face into the window repeatedly.
“Do you want to get in trouble?” Ryder stands, and pulls him back down. Aidan fights in his brother’s arms, and Ryder shoots an embarrassed look at Lin. She stares at the floor tactfully.
Aidan squirms, voice pitching up and tears forming. “You can’t stop me!”
“Calm down,” Ryder murmurs. “Calm. Down.”
“You can’t…” Aidan sniffs, voice cracking. “Stop me.”
The little boy cries in his brother’s arms, cries and cries, until he wears himself out and falls asleep. Lin keeps her gaze on the floor until he quiets. She gets a very good look at Ryder’s shoes. Red dirt cakes them. Quarry kids from down south. They’re alone. Their parents must’ve contracted red-mouth. Lin heard about the outbreak. Three thousand dead and more orphaned.
She ventures a glance at Ryder’s face. It’s ashen, dark eyes reading the brochure, one hand turning pages and the other being clutched in his brother’s smaller hand as he sleeps. Ryder catches her staring, and pulls his brother closer to him. Protectively. His eyes burn with a warning - don’t ask questions. Don’t talk to us. Don’t even think of hurting Aidan. That one second of fierce contact brands her like a hot iron. She stares out the window instead.
When Aidan wakes, Ryder takes out a brown paper wrapped square. A sandwich. Ryder moves to split it in half, but Aidan grabs it and wolfs it down. Ryder doesn’t protest, or even try to grab it back. Belly full, Aidan stands outside the compartment, leaning on the window of the opposite side of the train. Ryder watches him with hawk-eyes through the open doors.
“What about you?” Lin’s voice is timid. “Do you have anything to eat?”
Ryder stares unblinkingly at Aidan. A man passes in the hall, blocks Ryder’s gaze for a second. He starts as if to stand, but seeing Aidan still at the window, relaxes again. Lin notices the bones in his wrists, the faint outline of ribs under his cotton shirt.
“You have to eat sometime.”
Ryder clenches his jaw. “I’m fine.”
Lin opens her lunchbox and grabs the pheasant breast on a stick. She holds it to him.
“My mom made it. It’s a little greasy, but it tastes great.”
The smell forces his attention her way. He eyes it, eyes her hand, arm, face. Looks her over, assesses her capacity to hurt him. His hand flashes out and takes the pheasant, and in three desperate bites, it’s gone. He wipes the grease on his pants, and goes back to keeping an eye on his brother. Lin picks at her tomatoes, what’s left of the pheasant in the lunchbox.
“Thank you.”
She looks up. Ryder doesn’t repeat himself, eyes locked stubbornly on his brother until the train screeches into the New Atlanta station.
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what did I just do
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