So, I shoved the skull stone back into my pocket and stomped my work boots on. I’d deal with the cloaking and everything else myself, no more asking Hungry Ghost for anything but his Miasma.
The dark little Den of the Waking Locust was located downstairs at the end of one of the halls coming off the fountain court. I’d slept through most of the morning, so by the time I got there, fighters were lined up out the door. From the impatient grumbling, it sounded like everybody wanted in before their next bout.
I checked the time on my HUD. The fights had already been booked up into the afternoon, but if I put my name in right then, I could probably get on the schedule for that night.
After another glance at the motionless line, I headed for Scheduling. For now, I would just keep the nerves frostbitten, then worry about getting in with the healer early the next morning.
While I was in line to submit my name, I caught the last of Warcry’s third fight on the screen in Scheduling’s booth. Warcry ran up the wall of this dingy alleyway, launched himself into a backflip, and blasted this armored dude with a kick that knocked his helmet into the stands. Before the dude could recover, Warcry nailed him with one of my Eight-Elbow combos. The armored guy was probably out by the second shot, but after he dropped, Warcry stood over his fallen form, fire raging and ready for more, until the announcer yelled, “Match! Winner—Warcry Thompson, three wins, zero losses!”
He turned to head into the locker room, but the announcer wasn’t finished.
“Congratulations, Warcry Thompson,” she yelled. “Your fights have been selected for broadcast on the Eight-Legged Dragons’ Prison League Fighting! Please see Scheduling for details!”
I gave Scheduling my name, then hung out nearby and waited for him. He came out of the locker room exit a couple minutes later, chugging one of the low-tier allotted healing elixirs. He had a cut over his left eye in the shape of the armored dude’s gauntlet knuckle plates, but on his way over, the bleeding tapered off.
Warcry swiped some of the blood off his face with his shirt. “Not taking the day off, grav?”
“I don’t need it. I’m fine.” If you didn’t count the weird bruises around the knife scars and the fact that I’d gotten kicked out of my body for a few minutes yesterday, that was true.
Warcry stared at me, sawing his jaw a little, like he was assessing me. I crossed my arms and stared him down.
After a second, he leaned over the Scheduling counter, knocking on the laminate with his knuckles.
“Oi, lovey, they sent me here to see about the Prison Fighting League broadcast.”
The alien inputting names and updating the win-loss database put up a wait a second finger, then sifted through a bunch of stuff on her desk.
“Here we go,” she said, coming over with one of the hand scanners like they had in the Universal Savings & Loans. “We’ll need your permission to use your name and likeness for advertising and your USL account information to deposit your share of the sponsorship money.”
Warcry’s eyes narrowed. “What’s the cut?”
“You’ll start at three percent, then bump up to six if your fights go to Premium.”
“Let me see some paperwork on the permissions,” he said. “I don’t want you bleeders owning my likeness or brand or nothing.”
The alien found something on her HUD, then sent it to Warcry. “As you can see, it’s strictly for ads and hype.”
Warcry read through it on his own screen, then grunted.
“Yeah, all right, give us the pad.” He input his hand scan.
Once all that was taken care of, we headed for the market court.
“That was weird,” I said, stopping off at a food stall. “Usually, you’re all about your brand lawyer seeing stuff before you sign it.”
“I can read for meself,” Warcry growled. Then he shrugged. “Anyway, that ponser doesn’t want nothing to do with a Big Five client. He sent back the Eight-Legged Dragon offer unopened and a message saying his reputation can’t take working for me anymore.”
“That blows,” I said.
“I don’t need him. I’ll keep me own hype up.”
From the food stalls, I picked up a kind of burrito thing stuffed with some stir-fried meat and a green vegetable that looked like snow peas, and Warcry got a huge bowl of rice and three kinds of meat. By unspoken agreement, we took our lunch into the arena and found a box to watch the afternoon fights while we ate.
“Seen the big man today?” Warcry asked.
I shook my head. “Far as I know, Rali didn’t even show up to say goodbye when Kest left.”
“Atta boy.” Warcry nodded in approval. “If anybody’s gonna make it through to Ketsu, it’s that bleedin’ savage.”
“Does Ketsu require going into seclusion?”
“Might do.” He took a bite of rice. “What I heard, it requires finding truths and altering your Spirit sea.”
“Like in what way?” I finished off my burrito and wiped some stir-fry sauce off my mouth with my hand.
Warcry stared down at the fighters for a minute, chewing. “So, you start out with this big open body of Spirit, yeah? All that’s good for is Ki. Then you condense it into a sea with rivers, give it some form and structure, and that’s your first step into Sho. When you specialize for Ten,
