The arena was once a parking garage.
You might still see it, had you peeped over the enchanted mirrors, and the sponsor banners and the blood stains, which they had worked into abstract art by pressure hosing. The pillars were original concrete ones. The building of the cars that spiral down to a place had been transformed into a VIP deck. The parking stripes were now used as boundary markers, go over the red line, forfeit the match, pay the Blood Tax anyway.
Rook was at the middle of Level B2, which was once Compact Cars Only and tried not to retch.
Debt Collector noted that her pulse was 122. "Elevated, but not panicked. Within normal parameters, adrenaline response is normal.
"Stop narrating my biology."
I am evaluating the combat preparedness. There's a difference."
"Does it look like I'm ready?"
A pause. The gold veins on the sword throbbed once slowly.
"...no. But you'll fight anyway. That's the important part."
Rook didn't answer. He was preoccupied with gazing at the mirrors.
They were everywhere. The discs of polished silver, floating, one after another, the size of a dinner plate, hovering at every angle of the swarm of mechanical jellyfish. There were no less than thirty within his personal view. Each one was his face, pale, weary, bloodless, in another attitude.
The magic mirrors never twinkled. They didn't look away. They just watched.
Debt Collector said that style points are computed in part based on crowd reaction. The mirrors are transmitted to all the subscribing terminals in Valeria Spire. All the views, all the cheers, all the suspended respirations, they all avour the algorithm.
"So if no one watches?"
Then clean you had better win, since you shall have no style multipliers to your rank.
Rook stared towards the VIP deck, which was empty. There were the sponsor banners Apex, Taiyo, Shinwa, still in the glove of the cool air. There are no glass box executives today. None of the big sponsors talent scouting.
Only a car park, thirty reflections and an adversary whose existence he had never known.
Rank 842 versus Rank 837.
An outsider versus a little superior outsider.
His opponent was late by three minutes, which was seemingly a power play.
She was perhaps thirty, and with the lean figure of one who had long been fighting and the expression of boredom of one who had never quite gained the position which counted. The weapon was a spear graceful, silver white, and the blade of the weapon gleamed upon the neon as liquid mercury.
Her clothes were well suited: jacket that was tight fitting, high tactical trousers, high heeled, well tractioned boots. No sponsors logos. No flashy accessories. Simply a woman who has come to do a job.
She looked at Rook. Looked at Debt Collector. Raised one eyebrow.
"New subscription?"
"...something like that."
"Hm." She whipped her spear once, a nonchalant act that was itself an indication that she had practiced a long time. "Well. Let's get this over with. I have a rent to make Friday.
A speaker crackled overhead. The voice of the announcer was computerized, monotonous, and it was most definitely a recording done in low quality matches which did not require live commentary.
"MATCH 8,432. YAMAMOTO, ROOK RANK 842. VERSUS"
A pause. Static.
"SYSTEM ERROR. OPPONENT DESIGNATION: crime scene: crimson dancer is dead. RECALCULATING."
Rook's stomach dropped.
"OPPONENT FOUND. INOUE, REIKO RANK 837. TITLE: 'DIVA'S CHOICE.' MATCH START."
The woman Reiko blinked.
"Oh," she said. And you are the one who killed Crimson.
Rook didn't answer.
"Huh." Her head was tilted and she was examining him afresh. "She was rank 859. No menace to any one of importance, but she was well built. Clean footwork." A pause. "Messy finish, though. I saw the replay. You did not give her an ounce of style at all.
She had the re play, Debt Collector grumbled. "Wonderful. Our image is already building up.
"I didn't mean to" Rook stopped. Swallowed. "I don't remember the fight."
"Doesn't matter. She is dead, you are there, I have to pay rent. Reiko sat down in a combat position and drew out her spear. Just by way of telling you my weapon can talk. A lot. Ignore most of it."
The spear shimmered. A voice, high, breathy, theatric, came up out of the blade.
"Finally! I was beginning to believe that I was not going to have any attention today.
Reiko sighed. "This is Diva. She will not thrust unless you praise her.
I mean not to thrust, you know, and I would be pleased to know when you mean. "There's a difference. Hypocrisy is better than not praising.
"What do you want me to say?" Reiko sang in a flat exhausted voice, which had been used a thousand times before.
"Tell me I'm beautiful. Thou art a sharper than ever I told thee. Tell me"
"You're beautiful. Your edge is fine. Shut the mouth now and I will stab this guy.
The spear spoke an offensively melodramatic sound. "Fine. But I am not letting you tune you to that attitude.
Reiko lunged.
Rook just managed to pick Debt Collector up.
His spear slipped off his blade with a screech of metal, near to his face, that he felt the disturbed air. He fell back, regained himself, got himself on his feet.
Reiko didn't pursue. She was already on her feet with her spear loose and ready.
"Decent reflexes," she said. "Terrible stance. Who trained you?"
"No one."
"Figures."
She attacked him again more quick this time, and in rapid strokes which had to be turned back. The spear sang. Every blow was answered by the voice of Diva: "Pretty! Fierce! Devastating! Tell me I'm devastating!"
"Shut up!"
"You never appreciate me!"
Rook parried and dodged, and gave a shallow cut at his forearm. Not deep. Just enough to bleed.
She's telegraphing, said Debt Collector to himself. "Watch her shoulder. She dips each time he makes a colossal impulse.
He watched.
Then followed the next lunge, in which the shoulders dipped just as anticipated. Rook slipped to his side, and swung Debt Collector around in a horizontal curve
And stopped.
Reiko was moving already past him, and her body was sweeping through the locus he had just left. His blade hadn't touched her.
She spun, grinning. "You hesitated."
You hesitated, Debt Collector, I said, and you are unhappy.
"I didn't"
"You did. Saw it in your eyes." She crept forward still, more slowly, predatory. Yea, first time slaying a ranked man? I do mean, remembering it?
Rook's jaw tightened.
"Thought so." Reiko's voice wasn't cruel. Just factual. "You get used to it. Or you don't. Anyhow, the system does not mind either way.
She attacked.
He struggled instinctively onwards.
Not strategy. Not observation. Nothing but bare survival instinct barricade, evade, run back, get room to breathe. The spear was everywhere. Reiko was more experienced, better trained and faster than him. Her footwork was clean. Her thrusts were precise. This is not all the commentary of Diva "Exquisite form! Unparalleled grace! Why not simply say it? was yet more tiresome than the fighting itself.
Debt Collector said, she is too big herself. "She thinks you're a novice. She is overworking her backswing too far.
"I noticed."
"Then exploit it."
Rook didn't answer.
Another thrust. He parried. Her spear became trapped on the hilt of Debt Collector a moment and she never un-taxed it. She moved ahead, attempting to topple him, attempting to take advantage of her greater length and thrust her sword out of the way.
Her shoulder dipped.
Rook moved.
Not a dodge. Not a parry. He came into her hedge, within the reach of the spear, within walking distance of her breath. Debt Collector appeared between them not thrust, not swung, but simply offered and the edge got into the interval between her third and fourth rib.
Clean.
Efficient.
She looked at him. Her mouth opened, closed. No sound came out.
The spear fell on the concrete.
"Reiko?" The voice of Diva was little now, deprived of theatricality. "Reiko, what"
Then Reiko bended, and Rook grabbed her before she fell.
He did not know how long he had her.
Seconds. Minutes. The spear lay nearby, silent. The mirrors watched. Something warm and spreading percolated his coat.
Her eyes were still open. They had ceased to concentrate after half a minute or so.
...she dead, Debt Collector said to himself. "You need to let go."
Rook didn't move.
"Rook. The match is over. You need to"
"Shut up."
He kept holding her.
The system notification would be in his peripheral vision.
MATCH COMPLETE
YAMAMOTO, ROOK VICTORY
STYLE SCORE: 23
RANKING IMPACT: +0
CURRENT RANK: 842
SPONSOR OFFERS: 0
BLOOD TAX STATUS: SATISFIED
Twenty three.
He had gotten twenty three style points. Compared with that, the last word of Reiko had brought more than that even through the dramatics of the spear.
You made me kill somebody with no panache, Debt Collector said. Almost impressed by the way you so unattractively did it.
Rook dropped Reiko to the concrete. Her face was peaceful. Like she was sleeping.
A member of the arena staff got up to him a young man in a gray uniform, with a body bag. He looked at Rook, he looked at the dead man, he looked at the blood that was seeping through his coat.
"You done here?"
Rook nodded.
"Cool. The next game will require the floor to be cleared. The man dropped on his knees, unzipped the bag. "Good fight, by the way. Very efficient."
Efficient.
Rook walked toward the exit. He had a disconnection between his body and his legs. The mirrors followed him, and showed his face in thirty different poses pale, blank, blood spattered.
His stomach turned him back before he got to the alley behind the parking garage.
Twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes, standing on his knees against a dumpster, he got rid of all he had eaten in the last two days on the broken asphalt. His ribs ached. Where the spear had cut him his forearm throbbed. His limbs could not cease shaking.
Debt Collector said nothing.
Then, having nothing more to vomit, he leaned up against the wall and gazed at the expanse of sky that looked over the buildings. Gray. Overcast. The leaderboard could only be seen above the clouds with names being in and out of view.
His name was still at 842.
He'd killed someone. Remembered it this time. And his rank hadn't even moved.
The system is rewarding spectacle, said Debt Collector finally. "Not efficiency. Not necessity. You made them a sterile, work related murder, and the algorithm noted it as dull.
It does not matter to me what the algorithm is.
"You should. It dictates how you are matched, how visible your sponsors are, whether you get access to higher weapon levels or not. A pause. "Your ability to pay rent."
Rook cleared his mouth using his sleeve.
"Her name was Reiko."
"...yes."
"She had rent due Friday."
"...yes."
"She's not paying it now."
A long silence followed in Debt Collector.
Then: "No. She's not."
Rook sat in the alley until the gray sky grew dark towards evening.
A notification appeared.
NEXT MATCH: 168 HOURS
OPPONENT: TBD
FAILURE TO APPEAR: BLOOD TAX x3
Seven days.
It was seven days until he was to do this again.
He pushed himself up. His legs worked. His arms worked. His chest was plucked like a hollow, and it has been scraped with an object inside it, as though a person had got at it and taken out something.
"Where are you going?"
"Home."
"You should eat something."
"Not hungry."
"You should at least"
"Debt Collector."
A pause. "...yes."
"Shut up."
The sword said nothing.
Rook walked.