The Rising Sea

20

Kurt and Akiko moved through the crowd as the lights came on in the arena.

“How soon till the fight begins?” Kurt asked.

“Twenty minutes,” she said.

All around the casino floor, bettors were gathering up their chips and making their way to the exhibition.

Kurt continued to move with the crowd; Akiko was with him but slowing down. “Stay with me.”

“You can’t go to the arena,” she said. “That’s what they want you to do.”

“I’m going,” he said. “But not the way they expect. First, we have to get out of sight.”

A hidden door opened in the far wall and a cocktail waitress stepped through it with a tray of drinks.

“Back of the house,” Kurt said. “Every hotel has one.”

He led Akiko toward it, pulled up beside the smooth section of the wall and waited. It wasn’t long before the door swung wide and another waitress came out.

She passed them without a second glance, navigating through the crowd toward a table. By the time the door clicked shut, Kurt and Akiko had slipped inside.

They entered an unadorned service hall. A drink station lay in one direction, empty locker rooms in the other. With the sound of footsteps coming down the hall, Kurt angled toward one of the locker rooms, slipped inside and closed the door.

When the steps in the hall passed by, Kurt knew they were alone. “You came here looking for revenge,” he said. “What was your plan?”

She pulled a small plastic vial from a hidden pouch in her dress. Opening the top, she produced several white tablets. “Poison,” she said. “Slow-acting. It would give me enough time to get out before taking effect. No one would ever know who did it.”

“Mind if I borrow that?” he asked.

She placed the pills back inside and handed it over. “Do you think that will help?”

“I’d prefer an AK-47,” he said. “But this will be easier to smuggle, especially considering the wardrobe requirements of the night.”

“You seem very certain,” she said.

“I am,” he insisted. “All we have to do is take our complaints to the manager. I think he’ll see things our way. But to reach him, we’ll need to blend in. If you’d be so kind as to put on a cocktail server’s uniform, that would be a start.”

Akiko opened several lockers before finding the right uniform and then began to disrobe without a hint of modesty. Kurt turned his back to her to give her some privacy and went through several of the lockers before he found what he was looking for: another bottle of pills.

He slipped it into his pocket and turned around.

“Aren’t you going to change?” she asked.

“Not just yet,” he said.

“That white jacket stands out,” she said. “They’ll spot you as soon as you walk up.”

“I’m counting on it.”

In a different locker room, down below the arena, Joe was told to dress for the fight. The pickings were slim, different types of athletic gear and martial arts robes. “I don’t suppose you have anything in suit of armor… say, early Middle Ages?”

The joke was wasted on his captors. They’d been ordered by Kashimora to get him ready for the fight and force him into the arena if he refused to go willingly. Other than that, they weren’t to speak with him.

With little choice, Joe picked out a two-piece martial arts uniform. The loose gray top had a V-neck collar; the pants had an elastic waistband, designed for ease of movement.

Several weapons were offered for him to practice with. He picked up a set of nunchucks and whirled them around, left and right. He’d toyed with nunchucks once before, but, without professional training, they were as dangerous to the user as to the opponent. After almost hitting himself in the face, he put them down.

The noise of the crowd reached them through the closed door. It rose and fell as a voice speaking in Japanese announced the coming bout.

“It’s time,” one of the guards said.

They marched him to the door and held him in place.

The door opened to a roar from the crowd and a wave of blinding light; Joe squinted as they pushed him forward and forced him to ascend a ramp.

He stepped into a circular arena with a six-foot wall around it. It reminded Joe of a bullfighters’ ring except that the floor was made of wooden planking, complete with dark swaths where it had been stained with blood.

“That’s encouraging,” he muttered.

“You guys should bet on me,” Joe said to the guards in his corner. “I’m sure you’ll get good odds.”

Neither of them responded, and when Joe’s opponent arrived from a gap in the far wall, Joe understood why. The man was a monster. Six foot seven and muscle-bound from head to toe. Huge rounded shoulders tapered to a washboard abdomen and then widened out on a pair of tree-trunk-sized legs.

“Never mind,” Joe said. “I wouldn’t bet on me either.”

The guards behind him snickered, but Joe couldn’t have been happier. He knew he wasn’t alone. Someway, somehow, Kurt would try to rescue him. All he had to do was stay alive long enough for Kurt to do it. And in that situation, a big, slow bruiser of an opponent would be far easier to hold off than a quick-hitting martial artist.

Joe was pushed to the center of the ring. Weapons were offered. Joe took a staff, like the one he’d used to vault over the Komodo dragon. The Japanese version of Hercules took a pair of sticks, one in each hand.

A horn sounded and the bout began. Joe held the staff in front of him as the giant moved in without hesitation. Joe jabbed at him a few times with the point of the staff, slowing his approach.

His opponent took the first two in the ribs and shrugged them off as if they were nothing. He responded to the third jab with a vicious counterattack. Displaying incredible speed for such a big man, he brought the left-handed stick down and knocked the point of Joe’s staff into the floorboards, while simultaneously lunging forward and swinging the other half-staff toward Joe’s skull.

Joe ducked just in time, hearing a distinct whistling noise as the stick passed over his head. The crowd let out a collective gasp and Joe pulled back, resuming his defensive stance.

“Take it easy, big fella,” he said. “At least give the people a show before you cave my head in.”

He might as well have been talking to a wall. The man neither smiled nor frowned. He just charged forward once again.

This time, Joe dropped to the ground, shoved the staff between his opponent’s legs and levered it to the side. The big man’s knees buckled from the attack and he dropped to the ground.

Instead of injuring the man, Joe’s next move was to disarm the guy. He swung his staff like a nine iron, catching one of the sticks in his adversary’s hand and sending it into the third row. Patrons dove out of their seats to avoid the incoming missile and Joe laughed at them.

The sideshow gave his opponent a chance to stand. Joe hoped the man realized he’d deliberately gone for his weapon instead of his head.

Before they could spar again, the horn sounded, signaling the intermission between rounds.

The big guy returned to his starting area and was briefly tended to. Joe went back to his spot, but the guards just stared at him. He grabbed a bottle of water for himself, took a small drink and rested against the wall.

For the first time, he was able to study the crowd. It was an intimate setting. Seating for maybe a thousand people. They surrounded him on steeply sloped tiers and every seat was taken.

He looked for Kurt but found no sign of him. What he did see were security guards standing at every entrance and in each aisle. There was no way Kurt could get into the arena without being caught. A fact Kurt had no doubt already discovered. It meant Joe would have to keep fighting while Kurt found another way.

The horn sounded for round 2. Joe put the water down and stepped forward. “Make it quick,” he whispered. “I can’t dance with Godzilla forever.”