From his posture, I thought he was planning to shoot the charging man in the face. Again, though, I got it wrong. Nik didn’t even point his gun at his opponent. He aimed it at the floor instead, clenching his fingers tight around the platform’s edge as he fired into the metal under his feet.
The shot exploded into the sand left over from when the platform had been hidden beneath the arena, blowing up a huge cloud. The billowing dust obscured the cameras for several seconds before their automatic particle filters kicked in, but even when I could see again, I still had no idea what had happened.
Thankfully, unlike every other time I’d watched Nik fight, this time I had the benefit of professional commentary. Seconds after the shot went off, a breathless announcer came on to inform us that Mad Dog’s shotgun wasn’t loaded with normal shells. He’d fired a fist-sized anti-armor drill slug straight into the motorized platform, which apparently used a gyroscope for stabilization. I figured out that last part on my own, because the gyroscope was what Nik’s bullet had just ripped through, sending the whole platform tilting crazily to the side as its ability to balance the two fighter’s weights vanished.
The unexpected tilt proved to be more than ax-dude’s heel spikes could handle. When the platform tipped sideways, so did he, his spikes sliding right out of the false ground to send him hurtling past Nik. He made a final grab as he flew by, but Nik was holding on to the platform with both hands, and he twisted his body out of the way, leaving the huge man windmilling his arms helplessly as he slid off into nothing.
For a sickening moment, I thought he was going to land face-first in the field of spikes and that would be that. But replacing most of your body with cyberwear comes with more advantages than just being bulletproof. Nik’s opponent was only in free fall for a few seconds before his body folded nearly in half, moving in ways no natural bones could to right his trajectory midflight.
He landed safely on his feet between the spikes a heartbeat later, his limbs folding in on themselves to absorb the impact of his fall just like a cat’s. I still heard a few things crack that probably shouldn’t have, but it looked as if he’d survived mostly unscathed. He was actually straightening up to get back into the fight when the rest of the blasted-out pillar landed on top of him.
The whole arena went dead silent. You could actually hear people holding their breath over the groan of the platform’s metal skeleton as bits of it broke off and fell to the ground. Nik dropped down a second later, letting go of the ledge he’d ridden all the way to the ground to land next to his opponent’s prone body. He grabbed his shotgun from where it was dangling by its chest strap at the same time, racking the pump-action one-handed to reload it before pressing the huge barrel into the back of the groaning man’s skull.
“Your armor can’t stop this,” Nik said, his calm voice shockingly loud in the stunned silence. “I win.”
There was a long pause while everyone processed what he’d just said, and then the announcer came back over the speakers, his booming voice sounding genuinely excited. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new record! Eight point two seconds! Mad Dog wins!”
We’d all seen it happen, but the official announcement must have made it real, because the second the words were out, the arena exploded, and not in a happy way. Given how many of these people had bet on Nik, I’d thought they’d be delighted, but the shouts drowning out the announcer as he attempted to read back the blow-by-blow were enraged. There were too many yelling voices for me to make out any actual words, but I caught the gist loud and clear. Despite Nik’s record-setting victory, that wasn’t the fight they’d paid to see. It was too short, too clean, too bloodless. This wasn’t what they’d wanted, and they were furious.
“Shoot him!” they cried. “Don’t stop! Kill!”
“Uh-oh, looks like the crowd isn’t happy,” the announcer said, doing his job of stating the obvious. “Will Mad Dog finish what he started? Will he—”
Nik responded before the announcer could pose any more overly dramatic questions. There was nothing he could have said that would have been heard over the shouting, but he didn’t need to say a word. He simply lifted his gun off the still-dazed man’s skull and walked away, stepping carefully through the field of spikes as he made his way back toward the arena door.
The reaction was immediate and ugly. The announcer was screaming into his mic, but I couldn’t even hear him over the full-throated roar of the crowd. Their anger was so loud, I could feel it in my chest. It was in the magic, too, turning the sharp, spinning power into a buzz saw as their cry of rage transformed into a chant.
“Kill him! Kill him! Kill! Kill! Kill!”
I curled over in my seat, palms pressed hard against my ears, but it didn’t help. The arena magic was surging with every word, the force building until my head felt like it was going to explode. Given just how much magic was spinning around this place, I was amazed more people weren’t doubling over. Being a mage wasn’t exactly rare these days, and the DFZ had more magical professionals than anywhere else on the planet. There had to be thousands of other mages in the arena, so how was I the only one getting hammered?
Because you’re tied to me.
I took a gasping breath. The DFZ was always in my head, but now I could feel her in my body as well, her
