Page 20 of Reaper
Same.But I’m okay, relatively speaking.At least I don’t have to piss in a hole in the floor anymore.To the victors really do go the spoils, at least in here.I’m gonna try to talk to some of the other fighters in the morning, and I’ll ping you if I find out anything.
You better fucking ping me regardless, Harker.I’ve gotten used to having you in my head all the time, don’t go vanishing on me again.
I won’t, babe.I promise.I let the direct connection lapse, and stretched out, closing my eyes and not thinking about how much I really don’t like being locked up.
* * *
I woke up a few hours later, about three in the morning according to the clock on the TV, which I trusted about as much as the average campaign promise.I heard someone moving around on the other side of the wall from my bed, but it was too indistinct to make out anything.I tried tapping on the wall in some kind of half-assed Morse Code, but all I know is SOS, and that kinda goes without saying if you’re locked in a cell in some kind of secret underground sports complex, or whatever the hell this building was.
I got up and moved around a little, stretching to try and loosen up the sore muscles from my fight.I felt pretty good overall—the bonk on the head to get me here had done more damage than the match, but it still felt good to go through a few katas and limber up.I examined my cell closely, but there wasn’t much to look at.A twin bed on a basic metal frame, with clean sheets and a thick blanket.Flat screen TV hanging from the ceiling, high enough that it would be a pain in the ass to pull down for a weapon, but low enough that it was possible.All the cables were hardwired, so there was no electrical outlet to try and MacGyver a bomb out of, not that I had any idea how to do that without getting myself fried in the process.
The “bathroom” was as basic as it could be: a toilet, a small shower with a drain in the floor and a fabric curtain on a piece of curved conduit suspended from the ceiling, and a cubby in the wall holding a bar of soap and a hotel-sized bottle of shampoo.I guess conditioner and a nice lavender body wash would have to wait until I won another fight or two.There was a set of shelves built into the wall across from my bed holding a towel, a washcloth, and a pair of loose pajama pants in roughly my size.There was a set of scrubs and a pair of boxers as well.A sink beside the shelf with a toothbrush, toothpaste, and a cup for water completed the furnishings, which were barebones but far from the worst I’d endured.Hell, given the fact that I’d been pissing into a hole in the floor twelve hours earlier, it was downright palatial by comparison.
Still, I would have liked a window, or something to let me keep track of time on my own.I didn’t trust my captors any farther than I could throw a Buick, and screwing with your prisoners’ sense of time is a tried and true interrogation tactic.Not that anyone had asked me any questions beyond my name.Well, at least being left alone would give me time to work on my cover story, in case someone decided to care.I felt Becks across our mental connection and could tell she was sleeping.She was probably exhausted from searching for me, so I let her sleep.
I could touch magic, at least on a limited basis, so I sat cross-legged in the middle of the floor and worked on some new defensive tricks I’d been wanting to try out.If the next fight was going to be against tougher opponents who had access to more of their abilities, it would be good if I had a new trick or two up my sleeve.
Spellcraft always relaxes me, as long as I’m practicing when no one is trying to kill me, so it didn’t take long for me to decide that my magic wouldn’t be harmed even a little bit if I leaned back against my bunk to think things through, and I was asleep in minutes.
15
Pete knocked on my door just as I was finishing up my morning ablutions.He knocked, waited about five seconds, then opened the door, walking in with a tray of eggs, bacon, and grits.He tossed me a bottle of orange juice-esque substance, fished a bottle of water out of his back pocket, and set the whole lot on the nightstand.
“Okay, you’ve got three days before your next bout, so most of that time you can spend however you like.This’ll be the last time you get room service, so enjoy it while you can.”
I put down the towel I’d been rubbing my hair dry with and looked at him, confused.“Three days?I thought you only did fights on Saturday.”
“Nah, we do Wednesday night fights, too.No main events, but it’s a good way for you undercard guys to maybe move up.”
“So I’ll be scrapping with somebody else who won their first-round bout this Wednesday?”I opened my connection to Becks wide so she could hear everything going on.This was good.I’d been worried that I’d be stuck here trying to figure out how be Murray James for a whole week between matches.
“Yep, or maybe somebody who lost a Tier Three fight on Saturday.You should probably hope for the other Tier One winner, though.Usually the guys who got busted down a tier are really pissy.”
That made sense.I could imagine how grumpy I’d be if I was used to sleeping in a bed and had to spend a few days in the Tier One cells.“How many tiers are there?”I asked.
“You really don’t know anything, do you?How did you even find us?”
This was dangerous ground, but fortunately it wasn’t much of a stretch to feign ignorance.“I don’t know anything, really.I heard there was an underground fight league for people like me, but nobody would talk about it.I guess most paras adhere to your boss’s philosophy on PR.”
Pete chuckled.“Kinda.We’ve got a hell of a YouTube following, but most people think it’s all fake, like indie horror films or something.There’s five tiers.Tier One is where you were.Not all the Tier One guys live here; some just volunteer to fight now and then to blow off steam.Tier One is fight until first blood, knockout, or submission, so there usually aren’t any serious injuries.”
Until some asshole bites a guy’s nose off, I thought.“Usually,” I said, letting a little color into my cheeks.I wasn’t really bothered by chewing Biker Bro’s nose off.It was far from the worst thing I’d done in a fight.At least he lived.
“Well, sometimes a fighter gets carried away.And sometimes his opponent has to be carried away, if you get what I mean.But we’ve got healers on staff for anybody who’s going to be sent home.We don’t want word to get out that our fighters are maimed for life.That would cut down on recruitment.”
“Tier Two is where the fights start to get interesting.That’s where you are now.Magic-users get to throw some spells, but your access to power is still limited.Shifters can assume their animal form, but they can’t do that half-man, half-beast thing.If they pause midway through a shift, they get tranked and forfeit the bout.”
“What about vampires?”I asked.
“Vamps go straight to Tier Three.Vampires and certain types of demons are just too powerful for Tiers One and Two.There wouldn’t be a challenge for them at the lowest tiers.We do get faeries sometimes, depending on the type, and a bunch of cryptids.Not Sasquatch, though.They’re too badass.They jump right to Tier Three.”
“So Tier Three the gloves are off, then?”I asked.“No restrictions on power, no limits to what magic we can access?”
“Mostly.The collars help us regulate your magic, so you’re not at full power yet.That’s Tier Four.That’swhen the gloves come off.The only thing you can’t do in Tier Three is intentionally murder somebody.So if you like threw a fireball at a vampire’s face right out of the gate, you’d get disqualified.”
“And what happens if I get DQ’d?”I asked.
“You don’t want to know.But let’s just say that spending a week in the Tier One cells would be a vacation by comparison.”
