Another left jab. Meticulous, prying, easily blocked. He was not yet taking this seriously, he was testing her. Another left jab, a little faster. Gorn could see it coming from three cycles ago, but she stood firm. She wanted to feel it, to hear his intentions. The fist collided with her side. Clunk. The same sound that rang through the barracks every night. Clunk. It drowned out the jeering of the crowd completely. She took a step back, reeling from the raw kinetic energy. So he actually meant it; a hit like that was a sign of respect. Her adrenaline kicked in, eager to meet the source of this throbbing pain. Maybe she could enjoy herself for once.
Gorn rushed forward, throwing her first swing. Raw, sloppy, unfiltered and undisciplined. Not meant to knock him out, but to be the opening step of their dance. She deeply hoped that he could read the writing on her fist, that he spoke the language without words. He had traveled up here from far south – zone 14 or 15 if she remembered – and was tearing his way through the northern pits. Until this cycle.
She connected and had her answer. His skin was warm, scarred and tough like leather. He stumbled back, acknowledging her invitation. A handshake sealed with a few bruised ribs.
With the pleasantries out of the way, they could begin. The crowd’s dull roar faded away, leaving just the heavy breaths and the clunks. Nothing showy. Just calculated motions as they peered deeply into each other. Far beyond any fancy flourishes, they dragged themselves into a gritty battle of attrition. Blow by blow, Gorn could see her peripheral vision fading and feel her limbs getting heavier. She pushed her muscles more, dragging them kicking and screaming into her opponent. The fire was turning into numbness. Just a little longer, a few more well-placed hits. Clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk. In the corner of her focus, she saw the man’s knees fall to the dusty floor.
“We need to get southerners up here more often.” Then the world went black.
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Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.
Gorn woke up to the familiar expanse of pipes and concrete above.
Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.
The pipes rattled; old, rusted relics of a bygone era. This was apparently one of the first pits ever constructed, the first by the owner’s account. The front row seats may have received a new set of upholstery, but she doubted the barracks had so much as a coat of paint since the dome went up. Pretty much every new fighter that rolled in off the streets would incessantly complain about the noise, using the lack of sleep as an excuse when she knocked them on their ass. By now, it was a lullaby to her.
Slowly the details of last night’s fight solidified in her memory. Her sides still hurt, a satisfying reminder of an uncommonly competent opponent. The stakes for the fight were steep; the owner knew it was going to be a spectacle. Of course he would win either way, but it was nice when some of the credits were shuffled down to her. She knew that her credit balance was now well above her next longevity tax, so there was only one course of action for her rest day. Tradition demanded it.
She stumbled out of the barracks, her hunger far surpassing her soreness. The distant clunks of the boilers faded as she passed through the drab lobby. Posters of the upcoming fights were hastily plastered to the walls, portraying the soft rookies as valiant upstarts. It had taken some painfully blunt words to convince the owner to preserve her matches as more humble affairs. The people who showed up with a generous fistful of credits knew what they were paying for.
Down three blocks of crowded, gray buildings that vainly reached upward towards the dome. She always assumed the rest of the city looked exactly the same, not that she could be bothered to cram into a lev-tram to check. The passersby craned their necks up and whispered, though it barely registered to her at this point. Following her muscle memory – as natural as throwing a punch – she turned and shuffled her way into an unassuming covered market. The hawkers shouted from their ramshackle stalls, their voices blending together into an unintelligible sludge. The song of the city played by its captive instruments. She paid them no mind as she shoved her way through the crowd, parting the sea of bodies to reach the unmarked stall in the corner. She ducked to pass through the plastic sheet before taking a seat on a lopsided stool. It groaned in complaint.
“Ey ey I could hear you a block and a half away, hold tight hon.” The raspy voice sounded like a knife in a cork board as it cut through the noise of the market. Gorn could feel her shoulders slump and her jaw unclench; it was an odd comfort coming from the only person she bothered exchanging words with outside of the pit.
After taking his time at a leisurely pace, Torskof emerged from the kitchen followed by a cloud of steam. His massive, gnarled fist was clenched around a cloudy bottle with a faded label; the “top-shelf” option in this part of the city. He placed a chipped cup on the counter in front of her before filling it with a generous pour that spilled from the top.
“Meat’ll be a bit, you go get started,” he roared. “Better see some color in those cheeks when I’m back.”
Gorn took a tentative sip as Torskof turned back to the kitchen. It burned in the back of her throat, slinking its way down to her stomach. Vile and unpleasant, but comforting. She watched the liquid as she swirled the cup in her hands, enjoying the feeling of her senses getting slightly muddled and the sounds of the market fading in the distance. Between the plastic sheet behind and the sticky counter in front, this was the only place she let her guard down. The humble stall was only wide enough to sit three – maybe two accounting for Gorn’s bulk – and barely had enough room for Torskof to perform his sacred duty behind the partition in the back. On the scratched wall was a messy collage of weathered photos: minor celebrities and the regular customers who had managed to not get on his bad side. A rather unflattering reminder of the night after Gorn’s official first fight was forever immortalized there against her half-hearted complaints.
The scent of charred meat and strong spices washed over her seconds before the wide plate was slammed down. Skewered cubes of every meat she could name, cooked to perfection and slathered with the most delicious substance known to man. Torskof would sooner die than reveal a single ingredient of his signature blend, so her playful punches over the megacycles did not stand a chance. Feeling the satisfying give of her opponents’ flesh was her main reward, but this plate was a painfully close second.
“‘Atta girl,” he chuckled, “I know a smile when I see one. Wish it didn’t take my best booze to squeeze one out of ya.”
Torskof leaned over the counter, his triumphant grin spreading from ear to ear. A fine layer of sweat coated his uneven face and thick arms, his wiry beard glistening in the dim glow of the market’s lamps. Tor had been a “family friend” for as long as she could remember, not that the term had a tight definition in such a transient place.
“That lad must have made you work for it, heard it was an ugly fight. No manners down there I swear. If he were sitting right on that stool I’d show him some proper northern hospitality.”
“He’d knock that fat head right off,” Gorn mused between mouthfuls. “Been long enough since you stepped foot in the pit, I’d be shocked if you left a scratch.”
Tor leaned over the counter, giving her a loving smack to the side of the head. “Left more than a scratch on a proud little punk I once taught if memory serves. Just turned out I wasn’t suited for it in the long run is all. Besides, the oil and smoke smells better than blood and piss.”
Feeling a little loose-lipped from the booze and lingering adrenaline, Gorn slumped back on her stool. “Do you miss it?”
“Must have rattled your little brain some last night if you think it’s that simple,” he jabbed. “Course I do. Comes to us as easy as breathing, you and I, runs in our veins. Times change though, people want greasy skewers more than watching us beat the spit out of each other. You find your place, you dig your feet in, and you don’t let anyone drag you out of it. Not that anything I ever say gets through that skull.”
Gorn frowned, her pleasant buzz mellowed by another unsolicited lecture. He meant well, he always did, but the old boar was twice as stubborn as he accused her of being. “Let me get you a ticket,” she said. “It’s the least I can do. Might help to light that fire in your belly.”
“Hah!” His laugh was genuine and deep from his gut as he slammed his fist on the counter. “Think I ever stopped being too good for your credits? Tell you what, once they get in someone who will knock you on your ass then I’ll show up. I’ll be in the front row with the biggest grin you’ve ever seen.”
“Might be waiting a while then,” she replied. “Grab me another skewer, listening to your jabbering always makes me hungry.”
Tor muttered some sarcastic retort as he shuffled back into the kitchen, another plume of steam welcoming him in. The noise of the market flooded in to fill the silence while she sipped the last dregs of her cup. There were worse ways to spend her day off.
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Clunk. Clunk. CLUNK. CLUNK. Gorn stared up at the pipes. They rattled violently, shaking a fine sprinkling of dust down into the barracks. CLUNK. CLUNK-CLUNK-CLUNK. It was loud enough to bother her, even after living at the pit for longer than anyone else. The day cycle staff had long since gone home, so she was unlikely to get maintenance out here unless the place was actively on fire. Still restless from the booze settling in her stomach, she figured she’d walk it off until the boilers decided to calm down.
While the exterior doors were locked tight during off hours, she was left to her own devices otherwise. She occasionally enjoyed wandering through the cramped spaces beyond the public’s sight: the medbay, the kitchens, the storage closets. All neglected parts that kept this old machine clunking along. Just like her.
As she passed by the owner’s office, her eyes trailed up to a thick pipe above an unmarked door. It shook even more violently than those back in the barracks, struggling against the metal clamps that held it in place. Uncomfortably curious, she opened the door to find a cluttered utility room. Boxes were piled up to the low ceiling and dust covered every surface. She squeezed herself between the precariously stacked columns, following the pipe above to the far end of the room. Behind a pile of (heavy) crates was another door, an unpainted slab of metal with a rusted handle. She pulled on it as hard as she could, grimacing as the door screamed with every tiny budge. By the time it had yielded enough ground for her to fit through, her arms were already sore.
The cramped stairwell on the other side was barely lit by a series of ancient lightbulbs dotting the wall. Her footsteps on the metal were drowned out by the constant clunk of the pipe that spiraled downwards along with her. Down, down, down, clunk, clunk, clunk. At the bottom was another heavy door, rusted over even more and near impossible to open. The lightbulbs flickered with the rhythm of the clunks, though many had been burned out or shattered.
The door sprung open and Gorn stumbled back as a wave of heat and light washed over her. A red-hot glow flooded into the stairwell, her skin prickling with an unnatural warmth. Her eyes narrowed while they adjusted until she was able to make out the imposing dark shape dominating most of the room. It was a crude mass of blackened metal, bolts and rivets haphazardly jutting out from every corner. On one of its ends, a tangle of pipes and tubes fed out from it to snake out in all directions. On the other, a small pane of glass faced towards a screen embedded in the wall.
She approached the screen to get a better look underneath the glow. Footage of the pit’s familiar arenas cycled on repeat, short clips of the violence that unfolded within them. She could not hear the individual blows against the deafening noise of the room, but she felt them in her muscles.
“How disappointing that they are forced to yield so early now. No release, no glory, no bone and blood. Pitiful.”
The crackling voice echoed from within the structure, muffled and hollowed by the thick walls of metal. Gorn turned around to peer through the glass, keeping her distance from its scalding surface. Through the haze of the immense heat, she could make out a lone figure inside sitting on what appeared to be a stone chair. The ancient man was thin, almost skeletal, and unmoving as he looked back through the glass. Wisps of flame danced along his skin, wrapping around his body before sparking to shoot off. His sunken eyes were completely focused on the screen outside of his enclosure as he made no motion to even acknowledge his visitor.
“What the fuck are you?” Gorn’s muscles tightened on reflex, the familiar adrenaline flooding in to wash out her melancholy.
“A lost, shackled thing,” he spoke. His words hissed and sputtered like dying embers. “A god, a heretic, an unwanted relic. It depends upon whom you ask, and when.”
Wiping the sweat from her brow, Gorn planted her feet and lowered her voice. “And the reason why you’re locked in a basement, burning alive, and fine with it?”
He lifted a bony finger, tapping it on the arm of his chair. “Same as why you thrash beyond it. How far we have fallen, daughter of the Circle, sunk into this abyss of complacency. I bear witness to these sad imitations of our rituals while those leeches sap away my rage.”
“I don’t know what you’re on about,” Gorn growled, “but I know damn well that a burning man in a boiler wasn’t on my contract. Convenient detail to skip.”
He lazily waved his hand, motioning for her to clear from his view of the screen. “Leave me, child. I tire. Go back to your cage and leave me to mine. The most you can do is honor what we have lost. None of these other whelps get my blood running at all.”
Gorn took a step back, her eyes turning back to the screen. Grainy flashes of the only world she knew, the only times she felt awake. Simple and crude, unlike the maze of concrete outside these walls.
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Clunk. Clunk. Gorn stared up at the ceiling. The pipe rattled, just as it always had since her first cycle here. She had a fight the next cycle; just a small affair with a rookie, but she still would have appreciated the sleep. The clunks had grown quieter, soft enough to dull her senses. The reward was going to be stingy, but at least enough to cover an extra ticket for a bigger fight. She had no intention of subjecting herself to Tor’s smug grin.