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  Maddox didn’t come to the underground fights often. The venue was always some crumbling warehouse in one of the sketchier parts of town. The beer was always watered down, and the crowd…well, it wasn’t exactly his crowd. Loud and drunk and lusty for violence. It wasn’t uncommon for more fights to break out in the audience than were scheduled on the card. He could think of twenty better ways to spend his evening, but he’d been dodging the invitation for weeks and he’d run out of excuses. He stood away from the crowd, near an exit at the rear of the venue with his back to the wall. He took another drink of what passed for beer. Discarded plastic cups and cigarette butts littered the floor.

  The datajacker’s thoughts returned briefly to his disastrous run in virtual space earlier that day. Next time he’d pay more attention to his gut, he promised himself.

  He’d made it out in one piece, though, untagged and unfrozen. No small thing, that, and the clean getaway reminded him of the biggest advantage to running a one-man shop: things were a lot easier when the only ass you had to worry about was your own. Sure, there were jobs you had to pass up on if you didn’t have a trained crew to help out. Huge gigs, the complex ones where you needed a dozen jackers hitting the same datasphere at the same time, each with a specific assignment. Still, for Maddox the upsides of working alone far outweighed the downsides. Everything began and ended with you. You didn’t have to train some green kid, didn’t have to share money with a partner. And if you screwed up, it was your mess to deal with and yours alone. With the lone exception of today’s debacle with Sanchez, his solo venture had been working out pretty well over these last months. A one-man shop, while admittedly less lucrative than a bigger operation, seemed to be a perfect fit for him.

  The spotlight followed Nagano as the fighter plodded his way to the ring, surrounded by security who cut a path for him through the sea of bodies. Hands reached for him, touching his back and shoulders. Beer sprayed through the air, thrown in the fighter’s direction. By the time he climbed into the ring, his ninja suit was spotted all over with beer stains. His assistants took his blades, then slowly removed his mask as the crowd jeered. Next the top and bottom garments came off, leaving the barefisted, barefooted fighter clothed only in his sparring shorts. The man was heavily modded. Maddox could see that even from a distance.

  “AND HIS OPPONENT…”

  Maddox winced as the crowd erupted into a deafening roar, drowning out the announcer’s introduction. The old man, pro that he was, compensated for the noise, shouting into the mic and holding it flush to his lips as he rattled off the opponent’s height and weight and win-loss record.

  “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I GIVE YOU NATURAL JACK KADREY…KADREY.”

  The spotlight zipped across the venue, skimming over a blur of tightly packed bodies and stopping at a doorway a few meters from Maddox. In the doorway stood the second fighter. Natural Jack, all two meters and a hundred thirty muscled kilos of him. Dark-skinned and hairless except for a round tuft of dyed yellow hair atop his head, he cut a mean silhouette in the spotlight’s white glare. The crowd went wild at the sight of him. The hero had arrived. With his hands on his hips, Jack lifted his chin to the crowd and sneered. Impossibly, the roar of the crowd intensified.

  Jack started toward the ring, his eyes fixed on his opponent. A steely glare, full of bad intentions. Just before he disappeared into the crowd, surrounded by his entourage, he glanced over at Maddox. The fighter’s death stare instantly disappeared, and he gave his old friend a wink and a grin. The look of a naughty kid who loved nothing more than behaving badly. Maddox returned the gesture with a slow, exaggerated clap.

  After prefight introductions that would probably last longer than the fight itself, the referee explained the rules to the spectators. A tiny man with a pencil mustache, Maddox couldn’t imagine how the ref would manage to handle these two enormous men. The recounting of the rules didn’t take long because, essentially, there weren’t any. All strikes were legal and no areas of the body were off-limits. No rounds, no stopping until it was over. The first man who tapped out or (in the event he was unconscious) whose corner threw in the towel was the loser. Above the ring, a trio of cam drones fluttered like dragonflies, broadcasting the fight on the underground feeds.

  The bell rang and the fighters circled each other, cautiously feeling out one another’s defenses with quick long-range jabs and kicks. Maddox watched, smoking anxiously. Jack had always been able to handle himself inside the ring. Still, the palpable violence in the air, the feeling of the crowd’s barely contained madness, permeated the venue and unnerved Maddox.

  A few minutes in, both men started landing blows. Hard ones. The kind you could hear in the small moments when the crowd noise lessened. A meaty thud followed by gasps and oohs from the crowd. Jack began to tire, Maddox noticed. He’d opened the fight dancing on the balls of his feet, improbably spry for such a large man. But now, fifteen minutes in, he was flat-footed and sluggish. Nagano was still fresh. Impossibly so, Maddox thought. He had to have something pumping through his veins. Nanobots maxing his blood oxygen. Synthetic adrenaline, maybe.

  Three brutal one-sided minutes later, Jack finally went down. A right cross on the point of his chin dropped him onto his back, and he lay there motionless, his arms spread out wide. A white towel flew out of his corner and landed on his chest. Nagano leaned over his fallen opponent, screaming at him in Japanese, gesturing wildly for Jack to get up so he could beat him down a second time. The ref stepped in front of him and waved his arms overhead and that was that. The fight was over.

  Nagano’s cornermen rushed into the ring, joyfully stomping and flailing their arms. They hoisted their man onto their shoulders. The crowd booed and jeered and hurled hundreds of plastic cups into the ring. Through the swirling chaos of shouts and raised fists and flying beer cups, Maddox caught a glimpse of Jack being helped out of the ring by his trainers. A cam drone fluttered above the vanquished fighter’s head, broadcasting his walk of shame back to the dressing room.

  ***

  “You weren’t exactly my good luck charm tonight, were you, Blackburn?” Jack grinned at Maddox. The fighter’s teeth were discolored from blood and his right eye was swollen half-shut. Shirtless and still in his fighting shorts, he sat on a folding chair in the tiny dressing room, his hands plunged into a bucket of ice water. His cut man hovered around him, carefully tending to Jack’s multiple scrapes and bruises. The muffled sounds of the emcee’s amplified voice and the crowd seeped through the walls. The next fight was about to start.

  “You’ll live,” the cut man said, rubbing the top of his head like a doting mother.

  “No stitches?” Jack asked.

  The cut man shook his head.

  “Good,” Jack said, glancing at Maddox again with his mischievous grin. “Can’t scar up this pretty face. Ladies prefer a man with smooth skin, you know.”

  Maddox lit a cigarette. “You always take getting your ass kicked this well?”

  Jack shrugged. “Win some, lose some. Such is life.”

  “You can’t smoke in here,” the cut man said sharply.

  Jack raised a wet hand out of the bucket, waiving the man off. “It’s all right, Angelo.”

  The cut man gave Maddox a disapproving look, then left the two men alone, shutting the door behind him.

  Jack removed his other hand from the ice bucket. “Ah.” He grimaced, massaging his knuckles. Water ran down his forearms, dripping from his elbows onto the floor. “Cold, cold, cold. Nothing works better for the swelling, though.”

  Maddox threw him a towel. “Thanks,” the fighter said, drying his hands. “So how’s things?”

  “Not bad,” Maddox said. “Had a bit of a bust today, but in general, can’t complain.”

  Jack tilted his head. “Back on top again, are we?”

  “Getting there.”

  The fighter tossed the towel at Maddox’s chest, grinned. “That’s not what I hear. The street says you’re tearing it up. Kicking all kinds of
ass.” Jack stood slowly, groaning as he rose. He moved to the small mirror on the wall and examined himself, pivoting his chin back and forth. He gingerly put a finger to his swollen eye. “It’s good you’re in the game again, doing well. Makes my soul sing, seeing you back in the mix.” He turned and looked at Maddox. “You got a lady friend?”

  Maddox blew smoke. “It’s been mostly work lately.”

  Jack shot him a disappointed look. “O, how full of briers is this working-day world.”

  “Merchant of Venice?” Maddox asked. Ever since he’d known Jack, the fighter had made a habit of quoting Shakespeare. Maddox didn’t know the works very well, and he rarely placed the lines to the correct play.

  “As You Like It,” Jack said, then turned the subject back to Maddox. “So all work and no play, is it?”

  “More or less.”

  The fighter turned on the tap in the small sink, leaned down, splashed water on his face. “You need to get some joy in your life.” He crossed the room, turned the chair backwards, and sat in front of Maddox. Beads of water ran down his forehead, dripped from his chin.

  “You got to get out more, my brother.”

  Maddox smoked. “Did it ever occur to you that if you went out less and trained a bit more, you wouldn’t have just gotten KO’d?”

  Jack furrowed his brow in mock indignation. “That’s cold.” He took Maddox’s cigarette, inhaled a deep drag, then handed it back. “You’re a cold-blooded man, Blackburn Maddox.” He blew smoke. “I invite you down here, get you free admission, a backstage pass. Now you’re going to make me go home and cry myself to sleep.”

  Maddox finally cracked a smile. He was glad he had come. It was good to see an old friend. Jack was one of the few who hadn’t abandoned him, who hadn’t blamed him for what had happened with Rooney.

  The fighter stood up. “Come on,” he said, smiling broadly again, “let’s go out and tear it up. I’m buying.” He toweled off his naked torso, arm and chest muscles rippling.

  “Go out?” Maddox said. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  The fighter lowered his chin, lifted his eyebrows. “Did you really say that?”

  “You just got knocked out.”

  The fighter removed the cigarette from Maddox’s mouth, took a puff, then gave it back. “And your point is?”

  Maddox smiled inwardly. Of course they were going out. This was Natural Jack Kadrey. The ladies’ man. The man’s man. The walking party.

  “Sure,” he said. “We’ll celebrate your loss.”

  Jack clapped his hands. “That’s what I’m talking about.” There was a knock on the door. Jack opened it. Samurai Nagano in the doorway.

  “Come on in, Shinji,” Jack said.

  Nagano entered, wearing flip-flops, baggy shorts, and a white T-shirt dotted with wet spots. His hair was damp and a towel hung around his neck. “Good showers here, Jack. Water’s nice and warm.” Nagano noticed Maddox, then lifted his eyebrows at Jack.

  “He’s fine,” Jack said. “One of my turfies. We go way back.”

  Jack put his hand on Nagano’s shoulder, examined the damage to his opponent’s left eye. “That’s gonna be a nice shiner tomorrow. Need any pain pills?”

  “Thanks, I’m good,” Nagano answered. He rubbed the towel against his hair. “Listen, I just wanted to…” He looked over to Maddox again.

  Jack laughed. “He’s fine, I’m telling you. No secrets between us. I vouch for him.”

  This seemed to put Nagano at ease. He reached into his pocket, removed a roll of cash as thick around as his forearm. “Just wanted to say thanks,” he said, holding out the money. Nagano’s head was down, his voice was quiet and respectful, almost apologetic.

  “Unnecessary, my friend,” Jack said, shaking his head, waving the money away. “Give that beautiful little girl of yours a kiss for me.”

  Nagano slowly pocketed the bills, then his face twisted and he took in a quick breath, as if he were trying to block a sudden surge of emotion. He reached out and hugged Jack, gripping the man tightly to him. Jack laughed in surprise and returned the embrace. “She’ll be just fine, Shinji. You’ll see. Just fine.”

  Nagano finally let go, his face streaked with tears. He thanked Jack again, bowing repeatedly, then turned and left. Jack stood there, staring at the door for a few moments.

  “You filthy cheat,” Maddox said. “You took a dive?”

  Jack grabbed his shirt and pulled it over his head. “Imagine that,” he said. “Something shady going on in the world of illegal fighting. What’s the world coming to?”

  “Bookies don’t look kindly on that kind of thing, you know. Word gets out and there goes your career. It’s no joke, Jack.”

  “I’ll tell you what’s no joke,” Jack said, suddenly serious. He gestured toward the door. “It wasn’t no joke when they found cancer in Shinji’s daughter. And it wasn’t no joke when those medical bills started piling up. And it sure as hell wasn’t no joke when they stopped treatment because Shinji couldn’t pay.” Jack shook his head, disgusted. “You ought to see that little girl, Blackburn. Bright eyes, big old smile that’ll break your heart right in two.”

  “So you two planned all this out and then bet on your knockout.”

  Jack winked. “You always could put two and two together.”

  “So who placed the bet?”

  “Some corporati Shinji used to give judo lessons.” He smiled. “Bookies had Shinji a ten-to-one underdog.”

  “Not a bad payday,” Maddox said.

  “Not bad at all.”

  Maddox smoked. “And so the undefeated record goes out the window.”

  The fighter looked in the mirror, patted his face dry with the towel. He gazed at his own face, then shifted his eyes to Maddox and shrugged. “Way I see it, there’s losing and then there’s losing.” He rubbed the towel over the top of his head. “You see the look on Shinji’s face? Hell, that’s not losing. That’s just about the farthest thing from it, brother.”

  The fighter tossed the towel to the floor, swiveled around to Maddox, then snapped his fingers and shimmied his shoulders to some dance music playing in his head. “All right, datajacker, you ready to hit the town with this loser?”

  ***

  Around 2 a.m., Maddox finally managed to slip away unnoticed from the party, which by then had grown to encompass every patron in the club. Natural Jack Kadrey was a people magnet. Handsome (even with the swollen eye) and charming and famous in an underground sort of way, people were drawn to him like moths to a flame. Maddox left Jack in high spirits, his hands wrapped around the waists of two beautiful women on his lap, whispering to them in turn, making plans for later.

  Maddox lit a cigarette and headed down Sixth Avenue. The City churned around him, ever wakeful, ever alive. The walkways were congested, as usual, a state that never changed or even seemed to lessen, no matter what the hour of day or night. The streets were just as clogged as the walkways. Ground cars snailed their way along at a pace only slightly better than the thick flow of pedestrian traffic. In his specs, a carousel of ads and street vendor barks rotated in the lower left of his vision, the portion of his lenses reserved as commercial real estate.

  **FIVE STAR TACOS DE CHORIZO** NEXT LEFT!

  DO YOU KNOW JESUS, FRIEND?

  HOLO TATTOOS, BEST IN THE CITY!!!!

  Some paid to go ad-free, but blocking tech was expensive and Maddox was tightfisted by nature. Besides, it cost nothing to ignore sales pitches…

  BUY ONE BLOW JOB, THE NEXT ONE’S ON US!

  …or at least try to ignore them.

  He walked on, working off his whiskey buzz, painted in the neon glow of towering holos. Dancing hamburgers. Shoot-’em-up plugin games. A soccer star pimping his signature line of sports clothes. A couple blocks ahead, the Dishi beer anime girl stood twenty stories tall, projected against the face of a standalone condo building. She downed a beer, tilting the mug high as white froth spilled down in rivulets between and around her gravity-defying breas
ts. She finished and put her hand to her mouth and giggled, then the cycle started over and she lifted the mug again, spilled, and giggled. A line of hovers moved slowly across her face, the automated trudge of the lowest and most crowded of the stacked transit lanes that extended up over a hundred or more stories, each level less crowded than the one underneath it.

  As it always did, the City’s brightness and noise soothed Maddox. Its crowded walkways of bespectacled strangers offered refuge, peace of mind. Its towering megastructures—the daisy-chained buildings known as hiverises that housed hundreds of thousands, even millions—were timeless, immovable mountain ranges, concrete gods who watched over the City’s valley floor. He’d never found the City intimidating or overwhelming as some did. The City was home, its ceaseless throb as natural to him as the beat of his own heart. Sure, you had to keep your wits about you, otherwise trouble would find you, but the street knew who the suckers were, and for the most part it parsed accordingly.

  Home was a thirty-story midrise in Tribeca, where Sixth Avenue merged into Church Street. In a previous era it had been a government office building of some kind. Its featureless facade of rust-colored brick and rows of plain rectangular windows shouted twentieth-century public sector austerity. Maddox sometimes wondered what the building had looked like back then, before it had been gradually covered—as most of the City’s buildings had—by a rainbow motley of graffiti tags and stencils and freehand pieces. Naked was the word that came to mind. A building with no markups seemed incomplete, unnatural. A mannequin’s face with no distinguishing features, fingers without prints. Maddox’s favorite graffiti on his home building occupied ten square meters of space just above the entryway, a scene depicting a datajacker in virtual space. Viewed from behind, the jacker sat cross-legged with his arms extended, palms up like some Hindu deity. Floating above one hand was a data visualization, a shiny black cube with COMPANY SECRETS etched on it in red letters. Dollar signs flowed into the other hand, shaped like a funnel cloud of swirling bills. In the background, a trio of corporati in three-piece suits looked on, their faces wide-eyed in horror, hands atop their heads in helpless disbelief as they watched the jacker rob them of their precious IP. Maddox had never been the superstitious sort, but when he’d first seen the piece during his search for a new apartment, a part of him couldn’t help but think it was the City’s way of telling him 250 Church Street was the right address for his new digs.