A Better Mantrap

DREAM FIGHTER

Rowan and his wife had to carry their own cases up three flights of stairs and along a sad brown corridor. Some of the lighting fixtures were broken, and the others served only to create dirty orange smudges on the walls. Jane stopped outside the room the desk clerk had assigned them and looked about her with a mixture of disdain and weariness.

“Some hotel,” she said. “Why do you allow Sammy to book us in to places like this?”

“It’s only for one night,” Rowan told her.

“It’s always only for one night. I can’t go on like this much longer, Victor.”

“We’ll be taking a break soon.”

“I don’t see how. The money you get for one fight these days barely sees us through to the next.”

“It’s better than no money, which is what we’d have if I …” The weight of the cases in Rowan’s hands suddenly became unbearable. “Do you mind if we continue the conversation inside? If we’re paying for the room we might as well make use of it.”

Jane nodded, turned the key in the lock and pushed the door open. Just beyond it, in the shabby dimness of the room, stood a grinning, scaly horror – part man, part dragon – which raised a clawed hand in menace. Jane drew breath sharply, but stood her ground.

“Victor,” she said. “Victor!”

“I’m sorry,” Rowan mumbled. He closed his mind, painfully, and the creature vanished into nothingness.

“You’re losing control.” Jane strode forward, through the spot where the apparition had been, and slung her case on to a bed. “Isn’t that a sign it’s time to quit?”

“How in hell can I quit?” Rowan kicked the door shut behind him, dropped the cases, and lay down on the other bed. The soft, walnut-sized bump on top of his head was throbbing, aching, flooding him with disquiet. He cupped his hand over it, feeling the unnatural warmth through his cropped hair, and tried to relax.

“Victor, you’re in no condition to fight.” Jane spoke softly as she knelt beside him. Grateful for the warmth in her voice, Rowan turned to his wife. The years had honed the original prettiness of her face into taut, economical planes which Rowan saw as beauty.

“I’ll be all right,” he said. “If I beat Grumman tonight the purse will be enough to let us…” He stopped speaking as Jane began to shake her head.

“Victor, you’ve lost twelve fights in a row. Against third-raters. And Grumman’s supposed to be good.”

“Perhaps he’s not all that good.”

“He’s too good for you.” There was no malice or reproach in Jane’s words. “Five years ago it would have been different, but now… I mean, I can’t understand how Sammy even got you the fixture.”

“You know who to put your money on, then.” Rowan was referring to his wife’s small ritual bet, which lately had become a monetary sacrifice.

“Never,” she said. “Now, you’d better get some rest.” Rowan closed his eyes and courted sleep, but his nerves were charged with awareness of the contest which was only a few hours away. There was an agitation, a restless traffic along all his neural pathways, and his exo-brain – that seat of supranormal power – seemed to crouch on top of his skull like a tiny animal with a disparate life of its own, scheming and dreaming…

The taxi in which Sammy Kling rode down town had been old even before they had ripped out its gasoline engine and put in a battery-powered unit. He perched on the narrow rear seat, staring out at the shabby streets with eyes which had lost some of their usual glitter. How come, he asked himself, that so many good cities got clobbered in the Dust-Up, while dumps like this survived?

He was a flinty little man, normally immune to his surroundings, but he was in a mood of vulnerability brought on by the telephone call he had received some minutes earlier. It had lasted about twenty seconds, consisting of nothing more than a terse instruction from Tucks Raphael, Grumman’s manager, to meet him at his hotel. Raphael had hung up without waiting for Kling’s assent.

The fact that he could be treated in such a manner, Kling realized, was an indication of how far he had sunk in the world. There was a time when he had owned pieces of four good fighters, but one had died and two had burned up. The one who remained, Vic Rowan, was fading fast and should have been put out to pasture years earlier. Kling had, of course, brought on other men, but his judgment was not what it used to be – or the game was changing – and none of them had amounted to anything. Now he was paying the penalty for being a loser – living in cheap hotels, eating synthetic pap, having to go running when men like Tucks Raphael crooked their fingers.

When the taxi dropped him at the Sheraton he paid, without any argument, the exorbitant sum demanded by the driver and went inside. Raphael’s suite was only on the fourth floor, but Kling – too dispirited to walk – paid the elevator surcharge and rode up. Two hard-looking men showed him into the well-lit silvery room where Raphael was lounging in a deep chair and making a telephone call. Raphael had grown fatter and shinier in the years since Kling had last seen him, but Kling’s attention was absorbed by the younger man who was standing at a window. Built more like an old-style boxer than a dream fighter, Ferdy Grumman had pale grey eyes fringed with white lashes. In contrast to the powerful musculature of his body, his mouth was small and womanly, pursed in permanent distaste. His scalp was shaved to reveal the irregular blister of exo-brain centred on top of his skull.

Kling stared at him for a moment, then – as their eyes met – he felt an icy sensation of dread, a fierce projection of hatred, and he knew at once that Grumman was a borderline psycho, a man whose main reason for fighting was that monsters were devouring his soul. He quickly averted his gaze and saw Grumman’s pink lips twitch in satisfaction.

Poor Rowan, Kling thought. Poor, gentle, faded-out Rowan hasn’t a chance. Tonight could finish him.

The thought inspired in Kling a rare flash of guilt about his profession. Several different kinds of mutant had appeared in the human race in the years following the Dust-Up, all of them characterized by the extrusion of extra-cortical tissue through the fontanelle. There were the straightforward telepaths – many of whom had been killed before the UN had extended special protection – and there were the seers, and those with limited powers of telekinesis. Their abilities had proved useful to society in one way or another, and they had found profitable roles, but there had also been a sprinkling of Unclassifiables, including those individuals whose ‘gift’ it was to make others see things which did not exist.

They functioned partly by instinctive control of radiation fields around them – the images they created could be photographed – but there was also an element of telepathy, because the visions were much more realistic and more detailed to the naked eye than to the camera. In a tired and shabby world the opportunity for a new kind of spectator sport had been seized at once, and the trade of dream fighter had come into existence. There were countries where the sport was illegal because of the psychological wear and tear on the combatants, and – in the dreadful presence of Grumman – Kling understood the reasoning…

“Hello, Sammy,” Raphael said, setting the telephone down. “How’ve you been?”

“Okay, Tucks. I’m getting along okay.”

Raphael smiled disbelievingly. “Have you met my boy Ferdy?”

“No. Hello.” Kling nodded towards Grumman and looked away again, unwilling to face the eyes. Grumman did not acknowledge the greeting in any way.

Raphael’s smile broadened. “Right, Sammy, we get down to business. My Ferdy is going to be the next area champion and I’m making him contender before the end of the year.”

“That’s fast,” Kling commented, knowing it was expected of him.

“You bet it’s fast. That’s why he’s got to get in ten straight wins in the next five weeks. That’s my programme for him, and I’m not taking no chances with it. No chances at all.”

Kling nodded. “Why did you want to see me?”

“It’s like this. Ferdy will destroy Vic Rowan tonight, but because this is a big operation with a lot of heavy money involved, I’m handing you two K. For insurance, if you know what I mean.”

Kling fought to control the pounding in his chest. “You want Vic to throw the fight?”

“He won’t be throwing it,” Raphael explained with mock patience. “I’m generous. I’m giving you and Rowan a thousand each just to accept defeat gracefully.”

“It’s a waste of money,” Grumman said in a sullen monotone. “I’m going to turn Rowan’s brain into mush and let it run out of his eyes.”

Raphael waved him to silence. “What do you say, Sammy?”

Kling’s brain was analysing the situation with cryogenic efficiency. Rowan was going to lose, anyway. The last shreds of his reputation were going, and it was becoming difficult to match him. He was so certain to lose that there was no need even to tell him about the fix. And with two thousand monits in his pocket he, Sammy Kling, could quit the fight game and go into something which offered better returns and more security. The decision was easy to make.

“You’ve got yourself a deal, Tucks,” he said. “The figure was two K?”

“It’s all there.” Raphael took a long envelope from an inner pocket of his jacket and handed it to Kling.

“Thanks, Tucks.” Kling turned to leave and was almost at the door when Raphael called him.

“Sammy! Vic Rowan used to be good, didn’t he?”

“People say that.”

“Just remember,” Raphael said. “You and Rowan have taken my money. I’ve bought you. And if there’s any funny business tonight I’ll put you both through the meat grinder. Got it?”

Kling nodded silently and hurried out of the room.

Rowan brushed his hair, trying not to touch the nowburning lump, and turned to his wife. “Are you coming to the fight?”

“To help carry you out afterwards?” Jane exhaled a cloud of cigarette smoke. “No, thanks.”

“I’ve only been carried out once.”

“It doesn’t matter. Besides, I’ve heard how Grumman fights and I don’t want to see it.” She continued flicking the pages of a magazine with studied disinterest. Jane was always tense and withdrawn just before a fight, but this time something in her manner alarmed Rowan.

“You’ll be here when I get back, won’t you?”

“I’ve nowhere else to go, Victor.”

“I…” Rowan gave up the struggle to find the right words. He closed the door and went down the three flights of stairs to where Sammy Kling was waiting with a taxi. The little man looked perfectly normal but a vague signal from his exo-brain suggested to Rowan that Kling had things on his mind.

“All right, Sammy?” he said as he got into the waiting vehicle.

“I’m all right,” Kling replied gloomily. “A bit worried about you, though.”

“Why?”

“I don’t like some of the things I hear about Grumman. Listen, Vic, when you feel him getting the edge on you – don’t wreck yourself trying to stop him. Just bow out, huh?”

Rowan felt a stab of annoyance. “Why is everybody so worked up about Ferdy Grumman?”

“I don’t think you should risk getting your brains scrambled, that’s all,” Kling muttered. “It’s up to you, of course.”

“I know it is.” Rowan sat without speaking for the rest of the short journey to the stadium. He knew he was going to lose again, that he no longer had the vital drive to win, but some remnant of his former self resented being written off so casually. The perverse notion crossed his mind that it would be worth beating Grumman for nothing more than the pleasure of seeing Jane’s face when she heard the news.

At the amber-lit stadium he got the checking-in formalities over as quickly as possible, and was glad to reach the solitude of a preparation room. It was an important part of the system that dream fighters did not meet prior to a bout, especially in the final minutes when antagonism was high and control of their powers most likely to slip. He lay on the simple bed and half-heard, half-felt the occasional eruptions of cheering from the crowd in the arena above. Grumman and he were fourth on the bill, a good position, and the audience would be receptive when they went on. Lying perfectly still, scarcely breathing, Rowan made himself ready for the struggle ahead.

When the signal came – a double chime from the loudspeaker on the wall – he rose without haste and went along the corridor to the ramp which ascended to the arena. A strongly-built man he recognized as Grumman emerged from another corridor and reached the foot of the ramp at the same time. Rowan was instantly aware of his opponent’s chilling psychic aura, but he went through it, like a swimmer breasting an icy tide, and held out his hand.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” he said.

Grumman looked down at the outstretched hand and conjured a piece of brown, smoking filth into it. The image was too close to Rowan’s sphere of influence to last for more than a fraction of a second before he blanked it out of existence, but the accompanying mental Shockwave had the force of a physical blow. Face unchanged, pale eyes staring, Grumman walked on up the ramp. Rowan followed him, barely aware of the reverberating announcements which boomed across the amphitheatre, cursing himself for having given Grumman the opportunity to take the psychological advantage.

At the head of the ramp, one on each side, were two low circular bases. Grumman went to the one on the left. Rowan turned right and was still a couple of paces from his base when there was an abrupt silence, followed by the sound of a woman screaming. He spun and found himself facing a thirty-foot-high demon.

A red light began flashing in the judges’ kiosk, to indicate that Grumman had made a foul play by leading off before the signal. Rowan’s senses were swamped by the reality of the beast towering over him. He had seen many monsters during his career, beings designed to inspire fear and thus weakness, but this one was in a class of its own. Its face was a compound of things human and things animal, and of things the earth had never seen. Its body was grotesquely deformed, yet true to alien symmetries – black, powerful, matted with hair in some places, glistening naked in others. And above all, the demon was obscene, massively sexual, with an overpowering realization of detail which had the intended effect of cowing the beholder’s mind. Rowan was closest to the apparition, and he took the full projected force of it.

He moved backwards, instinctively, and felt his way on to his base, filled with an intense reluctance to go on with the fight. It would mean entering a strange intimacy with the demon’s creator, and that was something which should not be asked of him. He considered quitting in that first moment, by stepping down from the base, then came the understanding that he was reacting exactly as his opponent intended, which was something a dream fighter should never do. That was what such contests were basically all about – the forces of nightmare, the conquering of minds by the use of no weapon but fear itself.

Habits developed over many years caused him to probe at the towering demon with intangible sensors, and he found the image hard. That meant Grumman was playing a one-shot, concentrating all his powers into a single protagonist with which he intended to win the contest. The discovery surprised Rowan, because it hinted at a lack of flexibility which was dangerous for any fighter trying to make the big time. He gathered his strength, opened the shutters of his mind, and put up a scaly, slope-shouldered dinosaur, equal in height to the demon but many times greater in apparent mass. There was a gasp of appreciation from the encircling terraces.

Rowan caused the dinosaur to lunge forward, but the black demon – moving with incredible speed – swung a razored hand at its throat. And connected. The movement was carried out so naturally, with such a co-ordinated and perfect simulation of reality, that Rowan was momentarily convinced, and – in being convinced – yielded control of his own image. There was a huge fountaining of dark blood and the dinosaur fell sideways, its head almost torn off. Rowan automatically dissolved the writhing creature into nothingness, while he fought to regain control of his own terror. Caught unawares, he had still been involved with the dinosaur when it was killed, and now a part of his subconscious knew what it was like to be ripped asunder by organic knives. Unbidden, in spite of all his efforts to prevent it, a lethal fear began to seep through him.

The demon shook knotted arms above its head in silent triumph, and a seemingly-tiny Grumman performed the same gestures, like a puppet gyrating at the feet of its master.

Rowan forced himself to rally. His exo-brain was on fire, pulsing with agony, but he took command of it, and – perhaps reacting against the demon’s associations with evil – put up a giant knight in full medieval armour. The warrior was equipped with a two-handed sword which he swung against the demon in a glittering sweep, but the blow never landed. The demon was too fast, too ferocious. Again Rowan was convinced, and again he yielded control. The bright armour was slashed open like foil, the blood spurted, and another part of Rowan died.

After that he tried a two-headed python which was torn apart even as it materialized around the demon’s neck. And a bat-winged creature which Grumman’s demon dismembered with contemptuous ease.

Each time, Rowan was unable to disengage quickly enough, and the resulting neural punishment brought him to his knees. His exo-brain was a blob of white-hot metal searing through his skull. He clasped the top of his head with both hands and rocked backwards and forwards, peering through slitted eyes. The crowd, sensing that the crisis point had been reached, ceased to make any sound.

It’s time to step down, Rowan told himself. You don’t have to die again. Just step down off the base, and it will all be over, and you can have a rest. His involuntary swaying movements grew more violent as his body, unconcerned with matters of pride or prestige, fought against the dictates of his intellect.

“Go ahead, old man – fall over.” Grumman’s gloating whisper reached him across stellar distances. “This is the time to do it. Just fall over.”

Rowan stared at him uncomprehendingly. Everybody expected him to do the same thing. Jane. Sammy. Grumman. They all wanted him to fall over. In a way it seemed a good idea not to fight any longer, and yet…

Rowan brought his eyes to a focus on the opposite base, and made an astonishing discovery. Grumman was concentrating his attention on Rowan, indulging a personal enmity, instead of monitoring the image which loomed above him. Rowan glanced upwards and saw that the edges of the huge demon had softened slightly, that some of the oppressive detail had been allowed to blur. He waited for a full second while, from the depths of his memory, he summoned up an old friend – one who had settled many issues for him in the past.

Valerius was a professional soldier, a scarred and weather-beaten veteran who had served with three different legions in Syria, Gaul and Britain. He had withstood rain, snow and desert heat with equal stoicism, and he had slain the varied enemies of Rome with impartial efficiency, regardless of whether they wore silks or skins, regardless of which gods those enemies believed to be giving them protection. He was a stolid, unimaginative man – as plain, functional and uncompromising as the short sword he carried – and in all his years of service he had never encountered a creature which could survive having an iron blade driven through its guts. And, as Valerius saw things, this meant that no such creature existed.

Rowan – knowing by heart every detail, every rivet and thong of the legionary’s equipment and armour – snapped him into existence in micro-seconds. He was much smaller than the demon, a sign that Rowan’s strength was nearly spent, but his sword was sharp, and he struck with economical swiftness. The blade went deep into the demon’s protruding belly, and pus-like fluids gouted. Rowan heard Grumman grunt with pain and surprise, and he guessed at once that the younger man had never experienced neuro-shock before.

This is what it’s like, he thought savagely, directing on to the demon a flurry of hacking blows which transmitted their fury to its creator, convulsing him with sympathetic shock. Grumman turned his eyes upward, guiding the black demon as it made a snapping rush, but Valerius – his body protected by the long Roman shield – struck at the face with almost clinical exactitude.

Grumman whimpered and fell backward from his base. His demon vanished as he struck the floor.

The fight had ended.

In spite of his exhaustion, Rowan kept Valerius in existence long enough for him to acknowledge the cheers of the crowd with upraised sword, and then gradually dissolved him out. They shouldn’t have written us off, he told the fading warrior. They should never write a man off.

It was late, and the stadium had emptied, before Rowan broke free of the local sports reporters. He had spent some time trying to find Sammy Kling, and finally had had to go to the promoter’s office alone and collect the winner’s purse, a cheque for five hundred monits. Puzzled by Sammy’s absence, Rowan waited on the front steps of the building for a few minutes, nodding as the box-office staff bade him goodnight and the stadium was sectionally plunged into blackness. He debated calling a taxi, then decided that walking back to the hotel would ease the dull pounding in his head. The after-taste of victory was less pleasant than it had seemed in memory.

He lit a cigarette and walked north on a shadowed street.

The car drew in beside him with feline swiftness, its sleek haunches speckled with rain, and four men got out of it. They closed on Rowan without speaking. Sensing their purpose, he ducked his head and tried to run, but two of them hit him at the same time, with what felt like mailed fists, and he went down. Within seconds he had been dragged into an alley, and there followed a nightmarish period during which he was systematically kicked from neck to groin. Eventually the blood-red explosions of pain seemed to diminish and he realized, with gratitude, that he was escaping into unconsciousness.

“That’s enough,” a voice said from somewhere above him. “He’s got to know what’s happening.”

The assault on his body ceased, and the dim figures redeployed. In the faint light from the street one of them appeared to be holding an ordinary garden spade. Rowan became aware of an even greater threat than that of simply being bludgeoned, and he tried to fight against it.

“Hold his head steady.” The dark figure moved over him, foreshortening like Grumman’s demon, and his head was clamped in place on the wet concrete.

“No,” Rowan pleaded. “No!”

“Yes, Rowan,” the voice told him. “And don’t say you weren’t warned.”

The spade drove downwards across his skull, shearing through skin and extraneous brain tissue alike. And, in that ultimate pang of agony, Rowan was born into the world of normal men.

Perhaps two hours elapsed before he found the strength to get to his feet and resume walking back to the hotel. The streets seemed unusually quiet, but he was unable to decide if the impression was a genuine one or something subjective, stemming from the newly-found silence within his head. Occasional cars ghosted by without stopping, their occupants undisturbed by the sight of a drunk staggering homewards with a bloodied handkerchief pressed to his scalp.

The hotel lobby was deserted, enabling him to climb the three flights of stairs without being seen. When he fumbled open the room door there was darkness beyond, but the tiny beacon of a cigarette near the window signalled that Jane was awake and waiting for him.

“Where have you been, Victor?” she said quietly. “What happened to you?”

The concern in his wife’s voice reminded Rowan that she had her own kind of dreams, better dreams than those which had just ceased to dominate his own life.

“What do you want first,” he said, forcing his body to remain upright for the necessary moment, “the bad news, or the good news?”