DAY 19, 7:58 A.M.
Aboard Genesis 11
At breakfast, conversation revolves around Azima.
It’s the first time that she’s not wearing her traditional bracelet. The dark space of her wrist looks naked without it. Katsu makes a big deal out of it, pretending there’s a new competitor on the ship. He introduces her by a Japanese phrase that simply translates as Lovely Flower. Azima laughs until Katsu claims that their ex-competitor Azima has agreed to donate all her points to him.
“I am the king again,” he proclaims. “And you are my loyal subjects.”
Azima threatens him with a fork. “Those are my points. You cannot have them.”
“What was it?” I gesture to my own wrist. “The bracelet you wore.”
“A reminder. My people were the last nomadic group in Africa. We stopped our wandering, but I wear the beads as a reminder that we are a people born for motion. The beads tell my story. A girl also wears them to attract a worthy man.”
Jazzy scrunches her nose. “So you were trying to attract a worthy man?”
“I was,” Azima says between bites. “In the beginning.”
“What does that even mean?” I ask.
Azima considers me. “I made a deal with Mr. Defoe.”
“We all did,” Katsu replies. “It involved a lot of money, as I recall.”
“No,” Azima continues. “I added something. I wanted to be allowed to pursue a husband if I found one of you to be worthy of me.”
Three of us choke on our food. Awkward silence dominates the table. Pursue a husband? Azima’s eyes are narrowed with a wide smile that her nyxian mask hides. I find myself avoiding eye contact, just in case that’s the deciding factor in who she chooses.
“Don’t worry. It is our way. A woman must be strong. A woman must learn to defend herself. She must rise into womanhood with purpose. If she does this, only a worthy man can approach her father for marriage.” We all stare again. Azima is serious. She wants to get married. Possibly to one of us. “I have worked hard to make sure my husband is held to a high standard. Being invited on this mission raised that standard even higher. If I were still living in my village, my parents would search for a young man of equal ability, someone who could keep up with me. It’s only natural that I consider those who were honored with invitations to this mission. You have achieved what I have achieved.”
“Well, which one of us is it?” Katsu asks, puffing his chest out. “You’ve seen my work with the ax. I don’t want to say I’m the obvious choice, but…”
“No. None of you, because I’m the strongest warrior.” She points her fork at the scoreboard. Her name glows at the top. “You can’t protect me. In fact, I will have to protect you. The only realistic option is to marry myself.”
We all laugh when Katsu offers to officiate the ceremony. Defoe arrives, though, to break up the fun. We’re escorted to the wall of nyxian objects again. One by one, we’re punished in a nyxian prison. The only two who don’t come out screaming are Jazzy and Roathy. After getting rag-dolled for ten seconds, Jazzy straightens, takes a deep breath, and returns to the line without saying a word. I guess it isn’t a huge surprise. She’s always the calmest under pressure.
Roathy’s resistance to the nyxia feels different. The darkness takes him, but he shrugs it off, like he’s been through way worse than a mysterious force grinding through his insides.
When it’s finally my turn, I take Vandemeer’s advice because I don’t want what happened last time to ever happen again. So I convert the objects until I start to feel the nyxia pushing back, too big to control. I step away from the objects and nod over at Defoe. “I’m done.”
His face tightens. “Your loss.”
Points trickle into my score, and Defoe calls Kaya. She refuses again, and we wait for Azima and Longwei to finish the challenge. Both of them are too competitive to stop early. After Azima gets her dose of torture, Longwei pushes as far as I did before hitting the floor, harder and longer than last time. We watch his body flail. He gasps back to us, but doesn’t scream this time. Instead, he stands up and points at the blocks angrily. For once his anger isn’t directed toward any of us. It’s aimed at Defoe. “You shouldn’t ask us to do the impossible.”
“Impossible?” Defoe replies. His questions are always poison-tipped and red-clawed.
“The objects are too big,” Longwei says. “It’s designed to make us fail.”
“It’s designed to push you beyond your current limitations.”
Defoe stands beside the very last object. It’s a cube that comes up nearly to his hip. He sets his hand on the dark surface and closes his eyes. The substance shivers into another shape.
“Impossible?” he asks again.
He sets his hand back down on the top of a nyxian pyramid and transforms it into a sphere, a cube, another pyramid, and finally back into a cube. Each time, the transformations get faster and faster. I see sweat trickle down his forehead, but otherwise the performance is effortless.
“That is amazing,” Azima whispers.
“But not impossible,” Defoe says in reply. “Unlearn your idea of impossible.”
Hell of a show-and-tell, I think. Hell of a mistake too. Before, we didn’t know what he or any of the Babel employees were capable of. Now we do. We know he’s strong. Stronger than us. Fighting him with nyxia would be impossible. I file it away under D for Danger.
We cross over to the pit. My eyes flick to the scoreboard, and I’m thankful for Vandemeer’s advice. I didn’t get tortured by the nyxia, and it didn’t cost me much in the standings either. As we funnel inside, I find myself looking forward to another fight with Jaime. I made a promise yesterday to our finely groomed friend, and I intend on keeping it.
The other fights just quicken my pulse. All the results are repeats, except this time Roathy drops his swords and sacrifices himself to Isadora. By the time Jaime and I take our place in the center of the arena, I’m a dangerous, dangerous man. He stands across from me, with his perfectly combed hair and pale green eyes. He looks pissed off. He’s gritting his teeth and white-knuckling the grips of his swords. Trying to pump himself up for a fight.
People think that works. I used to do it whenever I played PJ one-on-one in basketball. And he’d crush me like a grape. Most of the time, the only thing that matters is skill.
Defoe gives the signal. Jaime doesn’t dance this time. He lashes out with his right sword and follows immediately with his left. He keeps up the rapid blows and pushes blindly forward, trying to rock me back on my heels. It’s a desperate tactic. I ward off the first four blows, set my feet, and use his imbalance against him. A quick duck sets me up to rip a good shot across his rib cage. His avatar bleeds. I could just step away and let the wound leech away his health bar. But I don’t do that. I want to punish, to finish, to destroy.
Jaime crowds me again, swinging an off-handed lash. I block, put two jabs into his stomach, and slide. My footwork is perfect as I step into a final, punishing hook. He doesn’t flinch, though. He’s supposed to flinch. Instead, he moves into my swing and brings up one of his swords.
If this was real life, Jaime wouldn’t have a jaw.
If this was real life, I’d be short an organ.
The pain rips through my stomach and our legs buckle. Simulated pain feels a lot like real pain. Jaime and I are a sweating tangle of limbs. Pain sears through me again, and Jaime’s eyes go wide in terror. I panic, thinking I’ve hurt him the way I hurt Roathy. I trace his stare back to my own stomach, though. The pain triples. A bright, scarlet circle is spreading there. His blade’s plunged through my suit and into my stomach. This isn’t a simulation. This isn’t fake. This isn’t happening to my avatar, then translating into my brain. A real sword is in my real stomach.
I fall backward. When I try to speak, it comes out as a bloody cough. A crowd of masked faces, the slap of foreign tongues, and then a quiet, nyxialess darkness.